Elementalist and ....

I'm trying to decide on what to do for my second job.
I'm wondering what would be the best combo with the elementalist.

I was thinking maybe warrior cause then anything that gets to close i can do some close up damage.
but then i was thinking monk so i can heal my self and my team if need be.

any suggestions?

I tried E/Necro, but I didn't really enjoy the necro skills. (Keep in mind that for me it's all effect, so what is actually "best" I don't know) When I get to the quest that lets me change my secondary (or when I start over which will be in a couple weeks) I'm going to go with E/Ranger so that I can have a pet and charm animals.

thats a neet idea. a ranger can charm animals?? cool

Im also a el/nec at level 18 the only necro spell in my list is well of blood, wich imo is a very very usefull life saving spell. All my attr points are in Fire, energy and (few) blood magic. Its a very powerfull character pve character, extreamly weak pvp character atm.

I thought about well of blood... but mostly I only used mark of pain.

All of my spells are crowd control (repetitive damage or splash damage) and mark of pain transfers damage from one target onto all surrounding targets which is great because it turns my one repeating dmg spell (firerain) into a splash dmg as well. But I never put any points into necro skills so at level 17 my splash is only worth 10 dmg... if I chose to keep it I"m sure I could make it up to 100 though... but mostly I just want pets.

I'm playing E/Me.. but I don't really enjoy.. mostly because I didn't bother learning how to play with my mesmers skills..

But E/Mo would be pretty cool.. with energy storage you would be able to heal a lot.. or use the smithing...

I use an ele/mo..

There are quite a few of them, but in my opinion it is one of the best secondaries for an elementalist.

I focus on fire and smiting skills (I call her my Pryosm ), and it really does work well, plus the energy storage attribute doesn't hurt either.

Along with the usual fire and smiting skills I use resurrect, and Healing Breeze (Even with 0 healing prayers, +3 health regeneration is not to be sneezed at. )

Air, Water, Healing, Storage

Great char all around.

Way better PVP than fire/anything wiz ~

Tsunamii Starshine

I played 3 toons of 6 classes, my first pick is e/me.

As I think of this, everyone has a role in the team. If you pick elementalist, then you are a damage maker. It could be a neat idea to pick monk as 2nd profession and keep yourself alive from time to time. But I trust the monk in my team to do his work.

So get the ME, empathy, backfire, chaos storm. ME got many energy consuming skills, and the good part is: you have enough of that.

I find that the best way to be happy with a character is to define their role, and then pick your primary and secondary accordingly. I don't think that the most effective characters are Warriors who can step back and heal the whole team if necessary (oh the irony). However a tank with skills to help them survive will make them a better tank. Or a damage dealer with more skills that add to damage, will make them more effective at their primary role. See where I am going?

Now in small partys (2-maybe 4) dual roles can help. But after that, you really will be more effective by specializing. And since all of the late game content is parties of 6-8, as well as Guild Battles, it would make the most sense to gear your character toward that goal. Now, most classes are varied enough that early on, you can dual role even if you selected professions simply for one role. Example: Warrior/Ranger Using Troll Unguent as a self heal despite the fact that once there is a specialized healer, all skills may change toward damage dealing and stances.

Good luck,

Matt

I use an E/R myself and i like it so far
imagine Pin-Down + fire storm, while ask your kitty bite the enemy... with your arrow/staff attacking
good for PVP too

My $0.02 from the playing around I've done on my elementalist.

Necro: I have found that when soloing, the necro blood line (life siphon, vampiric gaze, vampiric touch, etc.) are VERY handy for keeping my elementalist alive, but only if you are going to take it high (mine is 12). I haven't played with the other lines, but I suspect curses could be fun.

Monk: When grouping, monk secondary is VERY handy. I nuke until we start getting beat down, then start tossing out heals. True, even with 12 healing the heals aren't as good as what a monk is capable of (if specced for max healing), but an elementalist can throw a lot of them with energy storage. Don't know if protection could be useful or not, but smiting seems almost redundant.

Mezmer: Has plenty of nice tricks that can both help you survive and manage energy as well as make the other guy's life suck, not to mention just being fun to play if it's your style.

Ranger: A pet COULD take shots for you, if/when you can get him between you and the mob, but I wouldn't rely on it for keeping me alive, and forget about it in PvP. Real players will ignore the pet and make a beeline for the squishy, paper-wearing healer/caster every time.

Warrior: Warrior will allow you to actually deal some damage with a melee weapon, but this requires you to be standing toe-to-toe with a mob, something that you should avoid like the plague and I assure you, any mob anywhere near your level will do more damage to you're squishy butt then you'll do to it with a sword. Probably ANY offensive spell you have would do more damage.

I haven't tried EVERYTHING possible, but these are the general impression I've gotten from what I have tried. I find myself using monk most of the time (when grouping especially) and necro when I'm soloing/farming. Of course, with the right skill set, you might find something even better, I would awlays encourage everyone to try it all. Once you ascend, changing professions is easy, and respecs are basically free.

I decided on ele/rang.
seems find so far even though the bow isn't doing much damage as a flare spell
hmm bow =10 flare =30+
i can't wait to get my char up to higher levels to get all my skills up..
anyone know if there is a cap on the skill set number.. like fire can only be up to 99 or something?

Ranger skills can make you give up flare easily when you reach higher levels, try Ignite arrows/Apply poison with regular bow shot, or combined with Pin down/Hunter's Shot, toss in a Meteor Shower, decent pet attack and you have a looting fest. If things get too tight, Troll Unguent can come in handy.
I have an E/R myself, just hit L16.

Don't overlook Healing Spring for self heal, I get 33 heal every 2 secs for 10 secs for everyone in my party who is in range (including my pet). Its not as obvious or as well known as Well of Blood so people tend to ignore it and run off, but it has the advantage of not requiring a body so you can cast it whenever...
Be aware of it being easily interrupted. I generally use it when I'm spamming arrows from range and see that the monks arent' keeping up. A little jog up to just behind the meatshields and a quick cast really helps out. (or pin down/run out of range for self heal).
It also has the advantage (for me) of being Wilderness Survival so in the same skill line as Poison Arrow, etc.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/skill/415-healing-spring


E/R is an excellent build, my guildmate is E/R whereas I'm R/E. I get expertise and decent armour which is great for Ranger skills and emergency tanking but he gets the massive manna pool which works for all spells.

I used to use Meteor Storm but found that with only 15% DP I was unable to continue using it and reverted to Fire Storm. Its the last elem skill I use now so I might become pure ranger when I can get Bombard.. but thats just me, I see my bow as my main weapon. If you're into spamming the massive nasty spells go E/R. The two professions really complement each other when it comes to damage at range.

Also don't underestimate the power of your pet. My stalker is now level 18 and well able to take down enemies for me. I set him on one target, poison it, switch to the next and by the time I'm back to the first he's more than likely just about to finish it off for me. Keep him healed and ressed and he'll level along just behind you.
Morat

E/Me > PvP

E/Mo > PvE

I have my Elem/Mes at lvl 17 atm, and generaly found for PvE the Mesmer skills arent as useful as simply pouring it all into an elemental + storage [usually i go with air/water combined with fire if i need to interupt/blind/knock over mobs].

Although there are some interesting Mesmer skills ive fooled around with like Illusion of Weakness is a great backup instant 150+ heal [need no bodies etc] and Distortion which have 75% evation of all attacks for 5secs [great for running into a gang of mobs and throwing phoenix/lava font/ice burst/gale etc etc]. Mesmer got alot of energy stealing stuff though, which only seem to get in handy in very long battles, but Ether Feast is also great for some direct healing.

Oh and i must admit, Backfire is DEADLY, theres certain areas where the mobs throw endless spells at you [ice imps?]. I havent tested it properly but i bet backfire + epidemic [spread the love] will probably do alot more damage than throwing fireballs/meteor showers. [And having 60+ energy at lvl 17 means elem can easily pull it off, just the casting time is an issue (5 casting time in total), energy cost i believe is 35-40 total.].Otherwise simply [some burning spell which lasts long enough] + epidemic??

Im also sure i can probably "pad" myself up really well with Earth Armor spells + Mesmer Mantras of Armor spells combined and then gain energy on top of that.

Main problem i have with Mesmer as secondary is how the spell groups are split, you can generally only afford 1 group [domination/illusion/inspiration] and 1 just never seem to be enough to combine the mesmer spells properly with elem spells, so quite a challenge to work with [and im out of attribute points again )

I have a E/N right now and it has its ups and downs. Like others stated before me I have not used many of the N spells except blood to help sustain my health. I do believe though that this will become an awesome character for PvP. With so many options for killing an enemy wont know what to do against u the first time if your tossing out curses and death magic.


If I did it again I would do either e/mo or e/w and not e/r

The e/mo would be helpful to keep yourself alive, typically you can stand toe to toe with a warrior and drop nukes on him like pheonix, which will make him think twice about charging you, however, without a heal or just a tab bit of assitance you might get him near dead but he will kill u first.

The e/w would be cool as its my understanding then you can wear warrior armor, which is the bonus there, +25armor per piece. So I would consider that for sure and like the other guy said forget about using a sword.

The E/R i think is a really bad idea if I understand it all right. From what I have seen on these forums if someone kills your pet you cant cast any spells for 10-12 sec? The only way a E stays alive and adds to his team is by constant casting. A good player on the other side would see its your pet, see your build, kill the pet and make a b-line for you. If he catches ya with 5 sec left with no cast...........your toast.

Nope, you can only wear the armor of your primary profession. E/Ws are just as squishy as any other E/* class.

I am doing an el/mez right now and using only the backfire spell. I just love finding the teams healer and lighting him up. Too many of them are too stupid to stop casting imo. I could probably be using other mez spells, but i just havent cared to experiment because i am so happy with backfire...