Core Ele for WvW

[fuzzyp.6295]

7 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

You make a good point there not gonna lie. I'll probably swap earth for fire as you instructed me. Since sustain is similar and damage is greater with fire, perhaps I'll perform better. 

 

Other than that, I find the protection access on Earth quite useful. Maybe Earth/Fire/Arcane can also work? What's your personal experience there? 

 

Thankfully I got a focus already so I can swap out a template at any moment. 

 

Basically my experience with swapping Water for Earth is that Earth is great at making you feel tanky, but always find it more useful to just build your Elementalist tanky with your armor/runes as opposed to investing in Earth. This could be my own bias though because I've been running Water for 8 years.

 

The times I've tried it, Earth/Fire/Arcane can handle power builds pretty nicely. Smothering Auras is usually enough to handle the condi pressure in these situations and the fight shouldn't go on for too long. You can also be more aware of incoming bursts against power builds so you can swap to Earth to defend easier. But Earth will struggle  fighting conditions builds unless you are running a high toughness/vitality build (i.e.: condi). Diamond Skin just can't compete and the other sustain skills on Earth aren't much better. And while you are right in saying the protection offered by Earth is incredible (no denying that here!), one issue is that, even more since the recent buff to Celestial, you can already get decent protection up time just by attuning to Earth ( with Arcane )through your armor stats and runes without having to delve into the Earth trait line.

 

Water on the other hand can serve you through both the power and condi based battles. You will take  more damage but Soothing Mist and Healing Ripple will keep your HP decent and Cleansing Water and either Soother Ice or Stop, Drop, Roll all work as effective cleanses.

 

Basically, if you want to duel power builds, Fire/Earth/Arcane works fine, but against sustain or condi based builds I find Water/Arcane/Fire works better.