Guild Wars 2

Hi,

i already have a war and a guard for fractals, and now was thinking of equipping my ele with ar. I heared many people say that eles are very useful in fractals.
Can you please tell me what exactly makes an ele so useful in frac and can’t be done with a war or guard, except from fgs? What is expected here from a good ele?

Good range, aoe dmg, group heal (water field) and sustained dps on staff. Some reflects on focus. Can also be very handy on Old Tom in the uncategorized fractal. Summoning a stone golem and stacking the melees behind him will let you avoid the spinning unblockable projectiles on the floor.

An ele cannot replace a guard in terms of reflects, but if you already got a guard in your group, eles are quite handy mainly due to the aoe, dps and group heals

Dont forget glyph of storms and lightning hammer for aoe blinds.

Nothing beats a warrior or a guardian in fractals.

You could be useful with condition cleansing if you run 10 points in water (after 10 dec you ll need 20) and 30 arcane.

For example on cliffside.

And with your survivability with focus (you can really ress 4 dead players on mai fractal for example).

Nothing will beat guardians or warriors obviously.

Lendruil.9061:

Can you please tell me what exactly makes an ele so useful in frac and can’t be done with a war or guard, except from fgs?

With a scepter-based build and lightning hammer, you can provide a hefty number of might stacks plus permafury for your group while maintaining blinds and doing a good bit of damage. With a dagger/focus build you can help cover reflects using swirling winds, provide a reasonable number of might stacks plus permafury using a DPS-oriented rotation, interrupt and help take down stacks of Defiant, and keep yourself alive for a long time using the earth focus skills. And if you have to swap to something ranged, camping fire with a staff isn’t awful DPS.

Lendruil.9061:

What is expected here from a good ele?

Might, fury, blinds, damage, and dodging. Just because you’re the most fragile profession (by base health and armor) doesn’t mean you’re allowed to take dirt naps significantly more often than others or that you should be building tanky. Go for as much zerk gear as you can handle and if you’re having problems surviving, grab knight’s chest, helm, and pants (assuming you’re going with exotic armor, asc weaps and trinkets) with the intention of getting to full zerk.

As of right now, the two trait distributions that provide good DPS while providing that permafury support are base 30/30/0/0/0 for D/F (put the last 10 in earth for more damage or arcana for vigor) or 30/10/10/20/0 for Scepter+LH. Since all the weapon sets have built-in condition removal, you don’t really need to take traits for condition removal.

Some of my favorite slot skills are

• Heals: Ether Renewal if I’ll need more condition removal, Glyph of Healing if I need a good, quick heal, or Signet of Restoration if I don’t expect I’ll need a significant heal
• Lightning Hammer: Blinds, blasts, damage, and Static Field for mob control
• Arcane Wave: Blast finisher
• Glyph of Storms in Earth attunement: AoE blind for 10 seconds
• Arcane Shield: Blocks the next 3 attacks over 5 seconds and is a stunbreaker. Good if you run out of dodges or need to help rez someone.
• Mist Form: Become invulnerable for 3ish seconds. Good if you run out of dodges or need to help rez someone, but you’ll lose your conjure.
• Glyph of Elemental Power in earth (cripple) or water (chill) for kiting bosses.
• Frost Bow (particularly skill 4) or Glyph of Storms in Air for AoE trash mob clearing.
• Cleansing Fire: if I think I’ll need even more condition removal
• Signet of Fire: 180 precision (if I don’t have anything else to take)
• Elites: FGS (of course) or, in some cases, Glyph of Elementals in earth to have a dumb and durable thing to draw aggro and facetank hits – even better now that it’s not affected by agony.

I find that my Staff Ele makes a world of difference in groups for Fractals and dungeons. Utilities are Arcane Wave (blast finisher), Glyph of Storms (long-lasting AoE blind in Earth attunement, usually a life saver) and Radiation Field (long-lasting AoE Weakness for damage mitigation). Elite varies, but I usually stick with Glyph of Elementals since I don’t really enjoy Conjure weapons.

He segues really well into the stacking strategy most PUGs like to use. Stick with the group, drop Sandstorm/Radiation Field, then spam Fire/Water fields and the PUG can usually take care of the rest with some help from your blast finishers.

OK, thank you.
So the eles job in fractals is basically the same then in normal dungeons?

More or less, with a bit more emphasis on blinds and cleave or AoE because you have more trash mobs to clear.

Also: reflects, group adaptability with conjures, control, and summoning the BEAST