Elementalist

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Elementalists are multifaceted spellcasters who channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up for in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage.

— GuildWars2.com Elementalist

Elementalist is a profession of master spell casters who manipulate four attunements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth as their profession mechanic. They wield each of these elements to defeat their foes and aid their allies. Albeit lacking in defense, elementalists are very versatile and have access to a plethora of skills, as these change when attuning to the different elements. Elementalists can also manifest the elements as conjured weapons with their own set of skills, or as allied elementals to aid them in combat. As a scholar profession, elementalists wear light armor.

Elementalists who venture into the Heart of Maguuma with the Heart of Thorns expansion can choose to become tempests, learning to overload their attunements for powerful effects at the expense of a longer recharge, while imbuing their voices with magic into shouts that aid nearby allies.

Elementalists that traverse the Crystal Desert and the Kingdom of Elona with the Path of Fire expansion can choose to become weavers, wielding one attunement on one hand and another attunement in the other, and even combine their effects into Dual Attacks. With reduced recharge on attunement swapping, all the new skills from weaving attunements together, and their stances, a master weaver never runs out of spells to cast.

Elementalists who wander the Canthan Empire of the Dragon with the End of Dragons expansion can choose to become catalysts, who cycle through attunements to power up their Jade Sphere and manifest the four Canthan Great Celestials to provide boons to allies, while empowering themselves with Augment skills.

Abilities

Profession mechanic

Attunement

The Elementalists have unique power to attune to different elements that changes their weapon skills based on the element.

  Fire Attunement — Attune to fire, gaining heavy damage and burning abilities.

  Water Attunement — Attune to water, gaining superior support and healing abilities.

  Air Attunement — Attune to air, gaining heavy damage and control abilities.

  Earth Attunement — Attune to earth, gaining superior damage-over-time and defensive abilities.

When one of these attunement skills is activated, the weapon skills of the player change based on the equipped weapon(s) and the chosen element. Because these attunements can be freely swapped even while in combat, effectively giving access to four different weapon skill sets, elementalists do not have access to weapon swapping in combat like most other professions. They also have the lowest base health in comparison to other professions, so they have to make up for their lack of durability under fire by managing their attunements and skills carefully and avoid putting themselves in dangerous situations. They also are very versatile, able to easily adopt a support or damage role.

Elementalist specializations are also rather unique in that each of them directly improve one of the attunements. For instance, the Fire specialization mostly improves use of fire attunement spells.

Skills

Primary article: List of elementalist skills

Utility Skill types

• Arcane — Spells that use non-elemental magical energy which cast instantly, often dealing critical damage.
• Cantrip — Defensive charms which activate instantly.
• Conjure — Elementalist can conjure ephemeral potent weapons for them and one ally to use in combat.
• Glyph — Skills that produce different positive or negative effects that depend on the current attunement of the elementalist.
• Signet — Signets grant passive effects while equipped, and produce a powerful effect when activated. The passive effect is lost while the signet recharges.

Other skill types

• Aura — Some elementalist skills create auras, which can then be detonated with their corresponding element.

Skills unique to elite specializations

• Tempest: Shout — Skills that take effect in an area around the tempest, dealing damage while also giving an aura to the tempest and nearby allies.
• Weaver: Stance — Skills that provide positive effects for the weaver, or do damage to nearby enemies.
• Catalyst: Augment — Skills that provide positive effects to the catalyst. They gain additional benefits via Jade Spheres.

Specializations

Elementalists have five core specializations, and three elite specializations:

Core

 Fire — Focuses on fire magic, increased damage, and burning. Enhances fire weapon skills and may enhance conjured weapon skills.

 Air — Focuses on air magic, movement speed, critical hits, and critical damage. Enhances air weapon skills and may enhance glyph skills.

 Earth — Focuses on earth magic, defense, and bleeding. Enhances earth weapon skills and may enhance signet skills.

 Water — Focuses on water magic, healing, and exploiting vulnerability on foes. Enhances water weapon skills and may enhance cantrip skills.

 Arcane — Focuses on boons and switching attunements. May enhance arcane skills.

Elite

 Tempest — Gain access to warhorns, a set of shout skills, and the ability to overload attunements for powerful effects.

 Weaver — Gain access to swords, a set of stance skills, and the ability to wield dual attunements.

 Catalyst — Gain access to hammers, a set of augment skills, and the ability to use jade spheres that grant boons to allies.

Traits

• See also, the list of elementalist traits.

Equipment

Armor

The elementalist is a scholar profession and wears light armor.

Weapons

See also detailed list of elementalist weapon skills.

• Two-handed
  • Staff — Can cast different area effect spells with direct or lasting effects. Provides access to Transmute Earth.
  • Hammer — Focuses on juggling between close ranged and medium ranged attacks. Built around using Grand Finale. (Catalyst specialization or Weaponmaster Training)
  • Spear - Ranged weapon that focuses on utilizing skill 3 for additional effects. Emphasises on using skills within Etchings for greater effects. (Janthir Wilds)

• Main-hand
  • Dagger — Emphasizes close range, heavy damage spells. Provides access to Transmute Lightning.
  • Pistol — Medium-ranged weapon with a plethora of condition-inflicting ability. Emphasises on generating bullets for Elemental Explosion. (Expanded Weapon Proficiency)
  • Scepter — Casts various single and multiple target, medium range spells.
  • Sword — Melee brawling weapon that channels various elements through its blade. (Weaver specialization or Weaponmaster Training)

• Off-hand
  • Dagger — Provides powerful close range abilities suitable for offense as well as abilities designed for defense. Provides access to Transmute Frost.
  • Focus — Provides supportive spells in form of energy shields, disabling snares and defensive area effects. Provides access to Transmute Fire.
  • Warhorn — Provides assistance to you in both supporting your allies and creating disruptive areas for enemies. (Tempest specialization or Weaponmaster Training)

• Aquatic
  • Trident — Long range magical weapon for manipulating attuned elements underwater.

Although the elementalist has access to only one weapon set during combat, they effectively have the ability to switch between four different skill sets by changing attunements. There are five possible weapon sets (ten after accounting for elite specializations), giving a total of twenty (or forty) skill sets when changing attunements. While underwater, they have access to the trident only, offering four skill sets when changing attunements.

It should be noted that sigils that trigger on weapon swap (like Sigil of Battle), also trigger when the Elementalist swaps attunements.

Access to the weapon swap mechanic when out of combat was added in the December 3, 2019 game update.

Crafting

The following crafting disciplines can create items that are useful to the elementalist:

• Weaponsmith — Daggers, Hammers, Swords, Spears.
• Artificer — Foci, Scepters, Staves, Tridents.
• Huntsman — Warhorns.
• Tailor — Light armor.
• Jeweler — Jewelry.
• Chef — Food.

Personal story

In the biography step of character creation, elementalists must decide which of the four elements they prefer the most. This choice is merely cosmetic and determines their starting head armor, which can be hidden or transmuted after character creation.

I study all the elements, but I wear a gem that symbolizes my love of _____.
	Water ("water") — Water, whether frozen or flowing, is life, and its currents run deep in us.
	Fire ("fire") — Fire's hunger, its destructive burn, demands respect. It immolates and clears the path for new growth.
	Earth ("earth") — Earth is the foundation that supports all life. Stone fortifies us. Rock grounds us.
	Air ("air") — Air is the source of all life. It is invisible, and yet it can destroy whole villages.

Lore

Elementalism is a broad and versatile field, with elementalists mastering the four base elements of nature: fire, focusing on raw power; water, focusing on supporting their allies; air, focusing on swift damage and mobility; and earth, focusing on defense. In times long bygone, under the now-unfashionable "four schools" model of magic, elementalism had applications mainly within the Destruction school. As masters of arcane magic, they can also create glyphs, summon creatures made out of the elements or conjure arcane weapons to aid them in battles..

While most other professions have a single human god as their patron, human elementalists tend to worship a variety: pyromancers worship Balthazar, aquamancers kneel before Grenth and Lyssa, aeromancers appeal to Dwayna, and geomancers look to Melandru.

Notable elementalists

See also: Category:Elementalist NPCs

• Ai, Keeper of the Peak
• Crecia Stoneglow
• Magister Sieran
• Matthias Gabrel
• Ulgoth the Mighty
• Zojja

Gallery

Concept art

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Pre-launch promotional screesnshots

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Icons

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  Official icon

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  Wiki icon

Trivia

• The elementalist was previewed under this image until its unveiling on the 27th April 2010.

External links

The Guild Wars Wiki has an article on Elementalist.

• Elementalist on the official website.

References

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Elementalist