[PvE]What second proffession would you recommend ?

I have the original guild wars (not factions or nightfall...)

I was thinking a monk, cause it's always good to have a heal spell or two, or a ranger for the archery...

what do you recommend?

Archery. Sucks. On. Eles.
Pets fail, too.

Tbh, /Ranger's there for Serpents Quickness. Everything else... is kinda pointless.

Of the two... Monk is far superior for an ele, generally speaking.
Aegis, Heal Party, Convert Hexes, Resurrection Chant, Extinguish and the like are very useful support skills that, while expensive on a monk, an Ele can afford - the fact that they work well without the Divine Favour buffs adds to this.

Look to expensive 'support' type spells to draw on, in areas that *need* them. There's no point running Aegis in an area full of casters.

Btw... damn, you need Nightfall and Factions as an ele... There's a lot of goodies there, like Res Chant, Shatterstone, Death Pact Signet, Blinding Surge... And all the cool Fire stuff. All the stuff I'd hardly consider making a build without...
At least you can run dual-attune Air ... without Lightning Hammer

E/R - Serpents of Quickness (as Stormlord said), Antidote Signet, Winter, other stances

E/Mo - resurrect/Rebirth (not really good on an ele though), condition removal, hex removal, healing.

E/W - stances and shouts

E/N - condition transfer, healing, spinal shivers

E/Me - fragility, epidemic, fevered dreams, hex removal, stances, energy maintanence

Hope this helps.

You will get the most useful skills by starting the game as an E/Mo. Later in the game you will be able to switch your second profession at will, so the only benefit of your first secondary profession is the free skills and skill rewards.

out of curiosity? When can you change your second profession?

There are quests in the Crystal Desert that allow you to change proffesions upon completion. They aren't too difficult, and all of them can be completed with Henchmen.

I would say use E/Mo until you reach the Crystal Desert. Like the people on top said, the good thing about E/R is Serpent's Quickness. I like to use it in conjunction with Glyph of Lesser Energy, as it nets you better energy management.

i am using E/Mo right now and doing great. i have made a couple really fun builds and can solo most of the areas im in. E/Mo is a good combination for easy straight off ele stuff. but i recommend changing your second profession at the desert (which i am planning to do myself) for more complex and powerful combinations that you discover as you progress throught he game.

It seems like E/N is not a very popular build (compared to E/Me at least), can somebody explain why? A lot of Necromancer spells seem pretty useful...minions to tank for a bit (I know they degenerate quickly), and can steal Health with other spells. Obviously, this may strain Energy, but how much? I'm new to the game so I don't know about the dynamics of the game later on...just from the looks of things, /N seem fairly viable to me.

And is E/Me primarily for the echo spells? I read that /ME can help conserve energy, but I glanced through their skills and don't see anything of that sort.

As suggested above E/Mo can help solo a lot with the heals, but is Health that much of a problem? In all the other MMORPGs I've played, mages usually run out of Energy/mana before they run out of Health, so is that any different here?

Thanks.

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