Jace320

Yes to both of your questions. Story mode for Arah is the same as the personal story quest and anyone in your group on that's on the last part of the personal story quest will complete it.

You go to Arah's story mode for your personal story. Everyone in your party on the quest will get credit for it. You will get credit for the quest and the dungeon.

No dungeons needed. As for reward, I completly forgot what it was besides gifts.

You need to do all the explorable areas outside of dungeons. So places with reknown hearts, cities and WvW. Dungeons are not included.
The reward is the star next to your name and the 2 gifts of exploration.

entropy3, on 08 November 2012 - 10:32 PM, said:

I'm thinking of getting Power/Vit/Toughness armor as soon as I can - after taking this build through CoF (I've heard the Explorable mode isn't too bad, and the armor looks nice on Charr). What pieces would you recommend I keep, versus transmuting? I'm thinking chestpiece definitely, perhaps trousers and maybe gloves. For keeping, that is.

Jace320, on 30 October 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

Not sure, maybe on the wiki?
Quick list:

• Shadow behemoth in Queensdale
  
• Tequatl the sunless in sparkfly fen
  
• Claw of Jormag in frostgorge sound
  
• the giant in charr starting zone
  
• The wurm boss in sylvari starting zone
  
• the shatterer in lvl40 charr zone

that were some of the top of my head

First off, I am no expert at the elementalist but I found a build I really like that works pretty well for dungeons and general pve (farming, lvling, etc). Link to build:

http://gw2skills.net...HmADLCFVYRRxM7A (link edited to display correct trait allocation)

What this build focuses on is the following:
good direct damage
good Survivability
decent Support

Trait spec:
0/20/0/30/20

Utilities:
Glyph of restoration
mist form
frost bow
cleaning fire
Glyph of elementals (elite)

Gear:
I am geared in exotic berserker's armor, berserker staff, with valkyrie jewelry. I have crests of the soldier in my armor slots, and that gives me a boost in vit/toughness with more power(cannot afford good toughness/vit runes yet).

Stats:
3k attack
17k health
35% crit chance (5% superior sigil of accuracy).
1900 armor

The armor rating is a bit low, I know, but I wanted to focus more on health first, as I read somewhere on the forums that the ideal proportion is 1/10 armor rating/health. You can swap out the sigil for something else, or rune differently according to your budget.

Summary:

The reasoning behind this build is to do decent damage, survive with good health and utilities, and to be able to heal yourself/party and conditions when the time calls for it. If I ever find myself outside of fire or earth attunement (in case of water to heal the party for example), I can pop a frost bow and spam it for the ten seconds I am locked out, or use frost bow/mist form to cause regen, which procs a condition heal. Frostbow 2 causes vulnerability, which is good for party damage. The 20 in air allows me to use the heal spell and the elite elemental glyph faster, and I can do more damage to low-health mobs because of bolt to the heart. Not to mention,20 in air boosts the crit rate and crit damage of my spells. I would take air over fire in this regard even though I lose the fire damage traits and some power. Finally, the 20 in arcane allows the staff to have a bigger radius, and that helps for pve or dungeons.

Blasting Staff is reason even to put 20 points in Arcane - it really takes the weapon from mediocre to lethal (especially if you make good use of Earth & Water.)  Elemental Attunement is also a 'must have' trait while the amount of boons you put out mean the +20% duration is also pretty huge.  Frankly, the only reason not to run Arcane 20 is if you are going Auramentalist and using S/D.  Blasting Staff will give you a bigger DPS increase than any other trait when in 'real' situations instead of just nuking a single stationary target.

My old power/crit build was 20/20/0/20/10. Berserker's staff with superior sigil of precision, Berserker's exotic armor set with valkyrie jewels, and crests of the soldier in the armors (could not afford decent runes at the time). If I remember correctly, I had roughly 1900 armor, 16k health, 35% crit chance (with sigil), and 3.1k attack.

I switched it up to a 0/20/0/30/20 build which I like better.  Same gear, but with just losing about 100 attack and 10% damage in fire (which I'm not always in) I have a survivable damage build that can still do comparable damage to my old build and I have 17k health. I like this for dungeons.

Also, to answer your question blasting staff is amazing. I highly recommend it.

I use the same 30/30 for power & precision and the last 10 in water.  The 10 in water grants vitality which helps some and also the passive heal over time and cantrips for your 5 and 10 trait bonuses.

Initially I tried earth over water for the remaining 10, but found water to be useful in team settings.  It is not amazing heals with the setup I have, but does make a difference.

I would not recommend the 20 in arcane just for that skill, but if you like the other benefits in that line than that is a different story.

For leveling up to 80 I used dagger / dagger most of the time with staff use occasionally in story quests.  Now that I am playing in dungeons more it is mostly staff because of the nice cc.  Even though this is a low health and armor build I find it can only be a bit of a challenge in unfamiliar dungeons.  Once i've learned the dungeons I generally can go most runs without dying or being knocked down.  For general pve survivability isn't an issue unless I over aggro, then just spawn an elemental helper to assist with the aggro.

Only the perimeter, as the skill says:

Create an electrical field that stuns foes CROSSING it

Construing the quote to include walking from one side of the circle to the other within the perimeter would be a strange interpretation, especially since the circle isn't that big to begin with. It would imply that standing still within the field would leave you untouched, while taking even a step inside it would stun you. I don't see any sensible way to interpret "crossing" as meaning anything other than entering or leaving, thus crossing the perimeter. I'd say his quote answered the question as you phrased it perfectly. I don't see it as condescending to actually reference a game description to back up his point rather than expecting you to take his unsupported word.

Traits:
http://www.gw2build.....0.25.30.0.0.15


*Play Style*:


For Single Target:  Start with SB's auto attack (this helps judge the distance between target), when you can consistently hit your target (i.e you are in 900m range):

Switch D/D --> Basilisk -->Steal(3k) --> CnD(3k) --> Backstab(6-7k) (should be around 12k combo + target should be dead ) Auto attack. --> HS. if not


Though you might not do much damage as your typical backstab build, you have little bit more versatility to work with


Group Play:

Cluster bomb -> Cluster bomb -> Cluster bomb. (each crits for around 3-4k )

Arcane to 20 is awesome for support.  I found Evasive Arcana at 30 Arcane to be very limited due to the Internal Cooldown.  You can sidestep the issue by swapping attunements, since the cooldown is around 10 seconds per attunement.  This puts out a TON of burst healing.  Basically, Geyser -> Dodge Into Geyser (AoE Heal) -> Arcane Wave (AoE Heal) while running forward a bit -> Dodge Backward while swapping attunements into Geyeser again (AoE Heal).  The third heal is HARD to pull off, but it's pretty cool in WvW Zerg sieges and such.  Mostly for show and mostly unnecessary.

For support builds 30 in water is awesome. If you're d/d you can have powerful aura, then when you go into dungeons or need to use staff swap it to the Cleansing Water trait (remove a condition when applying regen to allies). This way you throw down a healing rain or geiser infront of your allies and all physical projectiles create regeneration. I haven't gotten too far into support building yet but arcane is a good traitline to have for the bonus boon duration, as well as attunement boons.