What Element is best !?

I am about to make a Eelementalist and i was wondering which element would be the best to be Air, Fire, Earth or Water (I was considering Air). And if my secondry was a mezmer and i raise its fast casting i was wondering would that make my attacks less powerful since it speeds the casking time

Fast Casting is the Mesmer's primary attribute, which means you can't use it on your E/Me. You can use Energy Storage on your E/Me, but Fast Casting on your Me/E.

If your secondary were mesmer, you would not have the fast cast attribute (it's primary for a mesmer only).

Many people feel fire is the "best" since it tends to lean towards larger-scale damage and burning. In some instances, fire is better than the others. I have an ele in Cantha who's run Air quite successfully the whole while switching over to Air and Fire or Water on ocassion for fun. My Elonian ele, on the other hand, is a Geomancer with Earth Prayers (from the dervish line) and, while it is a challenge, seems to work just fine for target annihilation with little energy concern.

First off, they all have their pros and cons. Fire magic has high damage and many AoE spells, but very little (if any) defensive skills (not counting firestorm to scatter in pve). Earth has very good defense, but not that high attack. Water has snaring skills, some defense and a bit less damage. Air has few AoE attacks, but does high damage (also has 25% armour penetration). You should find what works for you by testing different builds, but personally I think Fire is the easiest to play (not the strongest, but easiest). The different magic branches have different uses, and are best applied in different situations. In PvE however, most people will ask for nukers since those are plentiful and easily played.

Secondly, Fast Casting is a mesmer primary skill. That means you need to be Me/x to use it, anyone making a x/Me won't have access to it. They can still use the skills related to it, but they can't increase it.

first of all, is this pve or pvp?

So would you think that a good choice would be a Me/E because then i would have my fast castting skills and ability to steel engergy and then i would have my Elementalist who would now hit fasting and stuff?

Nar, i havnt even got the game. i am just choosing at the moment. but i am definetly getting the game

Personally, I don't think a Me/E would work the way you suggest (to steal energy and then funnel it into an ele skill). I've played both and an Elementalist is much more energy intensive than Mesmer which is why they have Energy Storage as their primary attribute.

If you'd like to try both professions together, then I'd stay with E/Me. Whichever element you decided to use (you'll get more fire skills first off if you play Prophecies), you can always aument it with Inspiration or Illusion from the Mesmer line as needed.

As a primary Ele you can use runes, boosting your fire magic up to 16. As a mesemer the max fire magic is 12. The damage difference can be quite significant, since many skills have a breaking point between 12 and 13.

you have compleatly the wrong idea about fast casting. it makes you cast faster but in return the recast times are increased.

when i play an ele, i used fire magic for damage and water or earth magic for defence. if you choose water magic then you could also throw in spells that slow down the enemies so that they are more vulnerable to ur AoE spells. if you chose earth then you could use wards which will help protect the whole team.

if by "recast" times you mean the skill recharge, you're wrong, fast casting only affects the casting speed...

on the other hand, elementalists have enough energy management to keep their spells goin', so no need for Me/E for "energy drain". Me/E are used in pvp for fast cast spikes, they use the fastcasting to kill before the enemy monks can heal the target. In pve, this is not needed, you can easely outdamage most regular monk foes.

to answer your question : for pve, i'd go with a E/... with fire magic, specially if you buy Nightfall (the "searing flames" elite is simply awesome in pve). However, you have countless good combo's in any element-line, and with some brains, you can make all of them work with ease in pve.

Note that you can rearrange your attributes, skills and gear any time you are in a town so you can choose to use whichever line you want for a given mission/zone or just to try out different things. Even your 2nd profession can be changed at some point in the game (varies by chapter).

Each proffession has their own attribute that no other has. Fast Casting is the Mesmers. For an Elementalist it is Energy storage to counter the cost of some of the most damaging skills in the game. When you start the game experiment with the skills a bit and ee what you like. But as you will see later in the game most groups will want what is called a nuker. A nuker is a Fire Elementalist set for high energy storage and the most damaging skills that person has at the moment. Certian skills are useless now due to an update that turned them into scatter skills, but even then they can be useful if used at the right time. Most nukers run a 16 point fire attribue build (at the cost of hit points though) and piut the rest into energy storage.This equals massive damage but at a cost of beign the first killed if the aggro turns toward you. There are pro's and cons to each type of Ele, but if used and setup well can be very powerful.

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