Elementalist - Core Support

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Support and Utility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on March 29, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A core support Elementalist build for sPvP made to keep allies alive in teamfights. This build was created for F2P players - while the build is perfectly fine it's not quite as good as its Tempest counterpart, so those with the Heart of Thorns expansion are recommended to play that instead.

Skill Bar

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Mist Form over Armor of Earth - panic button that works well against burst damage but has a way higher CD.

Heal

• Ether Renewal - slightly more selfish skill that could help you out a lot against conditions, but offers nothing for the team whereas Arcane Brilliance could be used to blast Water fields for AoE healing.

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Specializations

Variants

• Earth's Embrace adds a useful personal barrier proc to the build for damage mitigation in exchange for slightly lower Protection uptime.

• Earthen Blessing trades a bit of Stability access for better defense against movement-impairing conditions and higher endurance regen.

Variants

• Powerful Aura could be considered against some projectile users like Rifle Deadeyes or Longbow Dragonhunters, allowing you to share Magnetic Aura with allies. However as a tradeoff your condition cleansing will become worse.

Equipment

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Changes

Relics

• Relic of the Flock - adds an AoE healing proc to your healing skill. Overall Karakosa provides more group healing when you're good at making use of combo fields, but Flock is much easier to use and heals more in 1 cast without any previous setup (making it more reactive). Unlike Karakosa which only heals allies, Flock could also be used for self-healing. These qualities make Flock an ideal option for beginners or harder matches where you expect to be focused a lot, but in theory Karakosa fits your role better.

• Relic of Antitoxin - improved condition cleansing.

Usage

General

• Under General Options / User Interface enable "Thick party health bars" and "Always show health bars". These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support.

• Avoid getting locked into 1v1s, always be in teamfights. You depend on your allies just as much as they depend on you! A support's job is to keep party members alive through support, and these allies must peel for you in return (if the enemy team gets to focus you without allies counterpressuring them you'll probably end up dead).

• It's possible to steal a capture point by knocking enemies off with Gust then keeping them out with some of your area denial skills such as Static Field or Unsteady Ground. The same skills are also good for creating some breathing room when you're being focused by the enemy team.

• Being a support build doesn't mean you don't have any pressure - Lava Font and Meteor Shower both do decent damage which could be useful in situations where there's nothing to support or you have to contribute some cleave damage (for example vs downed targets).

• Always aim to use Arcane Brilliance inside some type of combo field (preferably water) for extra value, especially with Relic of Karakosa.

Support and sustain

• Attunement swapping itself is your first line of defense. Attuning to elements is instant and could even be used while CC'd!

• Swapping to Water Attunement cleanses 2 conditions and heals allies around you. This even has a chance to break you out of Fear.

• Swapping to Earth Attunement applies AoE Protection, mitigating incoming strike damage and making you immune to critical hits via Stone Heart.

• The first dodge on Water heals allies and cleanses conditions via Evasive Arcana. Swapping to Water in the middle of a dodge roll near teammates is one of your strongest methods of reactive burst healing/cleansing as it's quick and hard to interrupt.

• Water Attunement is where most of your healing and condition removal comes from, Earth Attunement is more about mitigation. While Earth doesn't have healing tools of its own it has plenty of combo finishers - we recommend you always swap from Water to Earth and place at least 1 combo field before switching.

• It's best not to linger in Water Attunement too much, as swapping to Water has many powerful effects tied to it. Your goal is to fit as many Water swaps into a fight as possible, so unload your big heals and move on to other attunements as soon as possible.

• Geyser and Healing Rain are fairly straightforward support tools. Geyser does AoE healing while Healing Rain is the best condition cleansing tool in the build. Both of these are also water fields, you may blast them with Ice Spike or Earth skills for even more healing.

• When you swap to Earth, your first dodge roll becomes a blast finisher. This attunement in general has a lot of combo potential, here's an example:
  • Precast a Water field on Water Attunement ⇒ Ice Spike ⇒ Earth Attunement ⇒ dodge, enhanced by Evasive Arcana ⇒ Magnetic Aura + Transmute Earth = 3 blast finishers in one field. You could add Arcane Brilliance for a 4th.

• Relic of Karakosa further encourages you to blast combo fields, adding extra healing each time such a combo is executed. This doesn't actually have to be a healing combo, any will do - even blasting Lava Font or Static Field. Of course blasting these is less ideal, but in combat things don't always go according to plan and Karakosa makes the build a bit more flexible.

• Air Attunement is for peeling for allies (and yourself). Static Field, Gust and Lightning Surge are potent CC skills.

• Casting Windborne Speed before swapping to Water Attunement is a great way of helping out allies that are pressured by conditions - Windborne Speed removes up to 3 non-damaging conditions, increasing the chance of cleansing damaging ones with Water skills and procs.

• Fire Attunement doesn't leave you defenseless either - Burning Retreat is usable even if you're Immobilized and evades incoming attacks, on top of being a mobility skill! Meanwhile Flame Burst can be used to Blind important skills.

• If taken Ether Renewal is perhaps your best personal healing / cleansing skill. You're however rather vulnerable during this channel, so it's recommended to use it right after swapping to Earth for various reasons. One, attuning to Earth grants Stability via Rock Solid and two, Stone Heart reduces incoming damage drastically to minimize the chance of getting killed. Another thing you could do under pressure is Lightning Flash away to the nearby highground in order to further reduce the chance of interruption.

• Tornado is valuable in plenty of situations. To mention a few:
  • Running away from a fight with Dust Charge.
  • Scattering enemies who are trying to rez or stomp - Tornado's even capable of tossing around downed targets!
  • Taking pressure off your team through Dust Tornado and CC in general.

Reviving allies

• Arcane Resurrection turns Geyser into a rez skill, and even spawns its own Geyser when you begin to revive someone.

• The two Geysers (weapon skill and trait proc) stack in effectiveness!

• If you're about to die dropping this AoE at your feet restores downed health for you later, making it easier for allies to get the rez.

• If taken Mist Form turns the caster invulnerable, allowing you to rez without getting interrupted or killed.
  • Note: Mist Form must be activated AFTER starting to revive an ally, otherwise it won't work. This only works with manual rez, not the Glyph.

• In general it's best to start reviving allies while attuned to Air for the Shocking Aura, assuming the enemy doesn't have Stability. Earth's Magnetic Aura isn't bad either (could negate interrupt skills like Head Shot) while Water's Frost Aura offers damage mitigation that allows you to tank more hits.

• Glyph of Renewal is a very potent ranged rez with a secondary effect that can be customized to fit a bunch of different situations. In general you should just focus on getting the rez as soon as possible regardless of attunement, but if you're able to swap to the right element beforehand this glyph becomes even more powerful. Couple of things to note:
  • The attunement bonus depends on which attunement you've started channeling this skill on. Swapping from Air to Fire in the middle of it for example is going to proc the Air bonus.
  • Whatever attunement you're using, consider swapping to Earth for the stability while channeling to make it easier to pull off.
  • Air Attunement teleports the ally to your location. It's great if you're in a safe spot, you may even consider teleporting to the highground beforehand with Lightning Flash.
  • Water Attunement brings them back with max HP, which is probably the best option if you only have to rez one ally and you're not in a safe spot.
  • Earth Attunement is for reviving multiple allies as it is an AoE rez.
  • Fire Attunement is mainly for your personal survivability. Even if you don't have an ally to rez, you could use this glyph on Fire and give yourself a 15 second window of immortaility, as using this skill in Fire revives the caster when they go down!
  • If you're absolutely certain that a teammate is going to die in 2 seconds, you may consider using this skill on their location in advance to bring them up a split second after they go down. This is a bit risky however, as if they don't die (or don't die inside the range of the skill) you're going to have to cancel cast with a weapon stow, which send it on a short CD of 5 seconds thus might not be available when they actually go down.

• Note: rezing counts as healing and is therefore affected by healing reduction effects such as Poison. If your teammate is poisoned on low health it's possible for Glyph of Renewal to not bring them back to life completely, only restoring a chunk of their downed health.

Stacking swiftness

• Stack Swiftness for your team before the game starts!

• For this you must begin on Earth Attunement. Drop Eruption on the exit gate - whilst channeling this skill, swap to Air Attunement and place Static Field on top of Eruption.

• Blast the field with Arcane Brilliance.

• Finish the chain with Windborne Speed.