AzureRogue

I'm sure questions like this have been asked before, but after some browsing I didn't find any quick, relevant, and current answers.  I have been playing Elementalist for only about 2-3 weeks now, and I just hit 80 earlier today.  I need some feedback about my build, and the gear choices I should be aiming for now that I'm finally considering what to get (maybe I should have started earlier, oh well).

Here are my goals, so you can take those into account when providing feedback:

• I want high direct damage
  
• I want AoE
  
• I want to be ranged

I've gathered that Staff is pretty much the weapon for me.  I solo a decent amount but I'm in a big, fairly active guild and plan to spend a lot of time in WvW or in organized dungeon runs.  I don't think going mostly glass cannon would be the worst thing ever (because I trust my teammates to help with control), but I'm not sure how much toughness/vit I may still want on gear (I mean, 12kish health kinda sucks).  This is where I really need feedback.

I really want more feedback on gear but if anyone really wants to know (and correct) my trait choices that's fine.  I'm currently 30 fire (10% more dmg attuned to fire, 20% CD reduction on fire, might stacks on fire spells), 10 air (quick glyphs), 10 water (10% more dmg above 90% hp), 20 arcane (elemental attunement, arcane CD reduction).  I often run glyph for heal and elite, arcane wave/blast/shield as utilities.  I've been thinking of switching to Ether Renewal for heal (in which case quick glyphs would get swapped to bolt to the heart).

I'm sure there are slightly better (or maybe massively better) traits/utilities, and I'm h appy ot hear about them - but please give me the gear feedback I need.

I'm scared to go full berserker due to being incredibly squishy.  I originally though I'd solve this by going for valkyrie gear, but I'm not sure I'm happy with that either.  I'm afraid that going primarily soldier gear would ruin my DPS, but maybe a mix of berserker armor/weapon and soldier trinkets?  I'm not sure what would be best - please give advice!

I was also considering using 6x rune of the scholar (because I think I can safely assume that I will be able to remain above 90% in a good amount of situations) for the additional power, crit damage, and +10% damage.  Maybe I'm way off the mark here.  My only other 80 toon is a tanky shout-heal warrior with solder's gear and runes of the soldier so I have no idea how to properly do a glass cannon.  Any advice is great!

Cheers.