Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone.
I cant survive on fractals (lets say lv 21 and higher) as a zerker ele. Any tips or it is just impossible with pugs?

Ty

Dagger/focus helps. Try going 6/6/0/0/2, you loose a 10% modifier but you still get the usual support expected from an ele; keep in mind it’s indeed a difficult class and dying after a long fight is totally normal for an average player. Try to use fire 3 as an evade, even if it’s a bit unreliable ( there’s half the animation not dodging), and take arcane shield maybe. Then it’s the usual job of blinding trash ( sandstorm ( not darude), lightning hammer) mitigating projectiles ( air 4, earth 2, earth 4) and using your obsidian flesh efficiently. Finding efficient pugs helps, obviously. Especially a good guardian giving aegis to the whole group at the right moment and not just for himself.

Ryn.6459:

Hi everyone.
I cant survive on fractals (lets say lv 21 and higher) as a zerker ele. Any tips or it is just impossible with pugs?

Ty

http://youtu.be/4Sr5tJKLfZk

Being an average zerker Ele doing fractals with my guild sometime I can echo your sentiment. oxtred gives very good tips for general situations. Is there any situation in particular you have trouble with?

@oxtred and Dalanor: I’ll try dagger/focus. I use staff cause I like more the playstyle.

@Galespark: As sad as it sounds, my main problem is with trash mobs….

If your main problem is trashmob, swap signet of fire for glyph of storm and start the fight in earth attun, use sandstorm and possibly obsidian flesh ( as you will have the earth attun cd anyway), or use lightning hammer, it has a blind on the third auto attack. IF staff, start in earth as well, and use staff 3 for personal reflects, staff 4 to cc the mobs, swap to air, air 5, and then go through your fire dps rotation. If you dislike dagger focus keep playing with staff, but remember it lacks the personal survivability of x/focus.

Blind everything below champion. Though I don’t remember the blinds on ele except for the storm glyph. But yeah, blind the trash. Unless it’s dredge. Then you just pray they die faster than your party is out of defensive utilities.

oh btw forgot to add this: having difficulties on trash isn’t sad at all, especially at high levels ( 22k heartseeker and my personal best, 50k ring of earth in the molten facility frac), and they are often more challenging than bosses in pugs run, as they won’t use proper support. For trashs, having vigor isn’t that helpful since there’s usually nothing special to dodge, so keep 6/6/2, use icebow+ meteor shower and anything below 30 should just melt instantly.

It just takes time getting used too. 66200 is a good bet and use energy sigil for bosses where you need more dodges. But there is other builds and weapons you use as well as dagger focus

I’m going as staff ele with a 6/2/0/4/2 build (Fire=VI, VII, XII, Air=III, Water=VI, X, Arcane=V). The water part is a bit defensive, but equipment is full berserk. This works well up to 49.
As an example I made some videos on 49 with staff ele as recording player. Perhaps you might get an idea, although the commentary is in german (probably doesn’t matter if you mute an incomprehensible comment instead of the usual junk music other players put over their videos

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwqPMN2XAKVgOdDgB7rzM9dyGAJipgMq6

What makes these videos different, is that they are not nice, not fast, not clean and not optimized. They are just casual. Everyone can do that and get even through level 49.

@Silmar. First thanks for those vids.
But I have a question for you. A question that I have been asking to myself lately.
I’d like to play ele on fractls, but I can’t survive with it. So, i) I could use some soldiers trinkets and keep all my blast finishers on my utilities bar. ii) I could keep full zerkers but I have to use defensive utilities… which means no might and fury for my party.

In i) I would lower my dps (to warrior level?) but I would still contribute to my party.
In ii) Whats the point in bringing an ele that doesn’t give might&fury?

Sry for my English.

Ryn.6459:

@Silmar. First thanks for those vids.
But I have a question for you. A question that I have been asking to myself lately.
I’d like to play ele on fractls, but I can’t survive with it. So, i) I could use some soldiers trinkets and keep all my blast finishers on my utilities bar. ii) I could keep full zerkers but I have to use defensive utilities… which means no might and fury for my party.

In i) I would lower my dps (to warrior level?) but I would still contribute to my party.
In ii) Whats the point in bringing an ele that doesn’t give might&fury?

Sry for my English.

Well, I’m not him, but in most of the cases you’d want to boost your party. I’d also recommend knight’s pieces for survival so you don’t get used to boosted hp pool and they generally scale better than soldier’s. Though getting used to higher armor value isn’t too good as well.

The berserk mechanics in the fractals is the same as in the open world: be as offensive as you can and kill the enemies before they kill you. Don’t endure damage, don’t try to outheal damage. Destroy the enemies instead.
When I raised through the fractal levels, I thought I need more defensive equipment in the higher levels, but that was not entirely true. Going too defensive means too much penalty in damage.

My armor and weapon is completely berserk, but I have 1 knight ring (Ettinband: toughness instead of ferocity) and the backpiece is soldier and the rest is berserk.
It seems to me that this, combined with the build, is my personal sweet spot between going down not too often and still dealing decent damage. I tried everything berserk and less water magic for more damage, but I went down significantly more often. Especially water X with its instant party-wide condition removal with no casting time (just attune to water) is a life saver in many situations.

About your questions, well, you have to experiment if you don’t yet know what works for you and what doesn’t work. I gave an example what works for me. Perhaps it works for you as well, I don’t know. With staff you cannot give as much party-wide might as with scepter+dagger, but you give combo fields of all kinds. The finishers could come from the party members. Instead boosting, staff deals good damage directly.

Silmar Alech.4305:

My armor and weapon is completely berserk, but I have 1 knight ring (Ettinband: toughness instead of ferocity) and the backpiece is soldier and the rest is berserk.
It seems to me that this, combined with the build, is my personal sweet spot between going down not too often and still dealing decent damage. I tried everything berserk and less water magic for more damage, but I went down significantly more often. Especially water X with its instant party-wide condition removal with no casting time (just attune to water) is a life saver in many situations.

Placebo and learn to play issues. That amount of toughness does almost nothing in your defense. It’s like ~5% damage reduction. Using the appropriate potion already gives you 10% damage reduction. You speaking about how he should go full nuts and blow up everything and you don’t even utilize it.
Watch and learn.

Something people forget to mention a lot for ele. Go max melee with lightning whip. Its really safe dps when you are out of dodges, invulns etc. For trash just take the appropriate defensive tools.

spoj.9672:

Something people forget to mention a lot for ele. Go max melee with lightning whip. Its really safe dps when you are out of dodges, invulns etc. For trash just take the appropriate defensive tools.

This extends past Elementalist.

So many times in Arah P2 at Alphard, I see players staying in the stack corner with Alphard.

This causes her to hit you with projectiles instead of allowing the appropriate projectile reflection/destruction to occur, meaning that the bomb will appear and force the group to roll out of the way and/or revive. It also destroys Wardens and Shields, allowing more projectiles past.

You don’t even have to be at max melee range, just stop standing on her.

/rant

I always end up standing in alphard because I can’t see kitten with all the effects, but then the 10k unload she does makes me move.

For staff, it’s all about awareness of your position. I’ve tried pure staff, no LH last night in fotm 30. It’s just plain easy and lazy.

Another thing you can do if you’re in a pug – where not everyone is using skale venom – is use glyph of elemental power for weakness uptime.

D/F as your main weapon set is definitely the way to go (though keep a staff handy). The first thing I’d start with, as some people have recommended, is take the vigor on crit trait in arcana. Adjust your playstyle to be more defensive. Don’t get greedy with the might-stacking – if you need the condi cleanse from magnetic wave, save it! What spoj said also is good advice – on the tough bosses like mai, archi, mossman, use that 300 range to full effect.

Make sure you chain swirling winds and ring of earth with other projectile defense, instead of wasting it with overlaps. The guardian or mesmer will probably assume it is their responsibility to reflect, so save yours for after they cycle through wall, sheild of avenger, feedback, etc. If you still find yourself struggling, begin swapping in defensive utilites. Arcane shield is your go to, but you can also take mist form. If all else fails, swap in an energy sigil.

And as was said above, blind blind blind that trash. Glyph of storms in earth attunement + lightning hammer can be a pug saver. You can use the hammer static field the way guardian uses ring/line or warding to cc the trash just as it gets to you.

Esplen.3940:

spoj.9672:

Something people forget to mention a lot for ele. Go max melee with lightning whip. Its really safe dps when you are out of dodges, invulns etc. For trash just take the appropriate defensive tools.

This extends past Elementalist.

So many times in Arah P2 at Alphard, I see players staying in the stack corner with Alphard.

This causes her to hit you with projectiles instead of allowing the appropriate projectile reflection/destruction to occur, meaning that the bomb will appear and force the group to roll out of the way and/or revive. It also destroys Wardens and Shields, allowing more projectiles past.

You don’t even have to be at max melee range, just stop standing on her.

/rant

What spoj means is with lightning whip’s 300 range, it is pretty much easy-mode melee on ele. Most eles don’t know this and stay within 130 range which is standard melee range for most others.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwQtsq8Rv5LUqwXRm3xOYnr1oYsitaiSi

This should cover everything.
And about the 300 LW range: It does help, but for some bosses like Archdiviner you still might get hit since their melee cleave range is out of this world. For those bosses it’s all about positioning.

You shouldnt get hit by archdiviner when using lightning whip at max melee. Unless you fail to dodge the bolts/leap. The thing that puts you in danger is your dps rotation and might stacking on top of him.

I didn’t test this but it was my impression that standing in his “frontal cone” will get you hit even if you’re at 300 range. For the 2nd fight that is. But I might be wrong and it’s just a subjective feeling.

You should be fine staying at max melee range. Source: http://gw2dungeons.net/?CLIFF

Veydar.5017:

I didn’t test this but it was my impression that standing in his “frontal cone” will get you hit even if you’re at 300 range. For the 2nd fight that is. But I might be wrong and it’s just a subjective feeling.

Lightning whip reaches further than 300. The range indicator is the range it will automatically repeat without you having to spam it. You can still hit mobs from a bit further away than the indicated range. Which is what we are talking about when we mention max melee range.

Max melee is op on any class. But even more so for d/f ele.

I am aware of that. I’ll give it a try today and record it, seems I was just wrong about his range.

It just takes getting used to know what attacks you must dodge. Be aware of your weapon skills blocks, invulns, dodges (Staff Burning Retreat (evade), Magnetic Aura (reflect), Focus Obsidian Flesh (invuln), Focus Magnetic Wave (Reflect), etc)

A lot of it has to do with coordination with your team as well. D/F is the build that a lot of people are pushing for eles in fractals atm since there’s so many survivability skills on it. I mainly run a zerker staff and stay in melee with my team for the pure dps. Would not recommend melee staff until you get used all of the mechanics for the fractals.

Odd. I have an easier time surviving on my Ele.

I use Evasive arcana, but otherwise the traits are purely offensive. Gear is all Berserkers

Switching weapon-sets and/or changing my utility-skills is enough to handle tougher encounters. Sometimes I equip a few pieces of defensive gear aswell.