Guild Wars 2

Ok guys this is going to be a long post with some possible rants, if you don’t like such posts then you shouldn’t be here.

I bought this game the 2nd week of its release but couldn’t play it much because of Mists of Pandaria, I started with elementalist as I always play (Mage) type characters first in any RPG/MMORPG. Leveled it to 20 and then left gw2 for quite sometime because I got more busy in wow with progress raiding t14 then 15. Recently I got bored with wow so picked up my ele and started lvlving her again and dinged 80 couple days ago.

Needless to say I got downed countless time during my lvling process and I kept telling myself it will get better as I reach higher levels and get better gear. Now I agree I don’t get downed as much often if I am careful and don’t pull more then 3 mobs but survivability isn’t my concern here. I choose elementalist who wears light armor and I understand he/she is relatively weak if enemy gets in melee range but my real concern here is dps. I am completely specced for dps trait/gearwise. Almost all of my gear is power/precision/condition for swaping between fire/earth attunements. I tried power/precision/critical for fire only but fire’s survivability is just horrible and isn’t viable imo. I run with staff, I am also aware there are tank type builds out there with 0/0/10/30/30 and dagger+dagger but as I already said I am not seeking survivability. I am seeking ways to maximize my dps output. I have run CoF part 1 recently and I just know my dps was abysmal needless to say I died with just couple of hits from NORMAL mobs in dungeon.

Mind you my gear is all level 80, with staff/coat/leggings/shoulders/necklace/trident being exotic and rest rare yet. I have tried Superior sigil of earth but currently running with +5% damage sigil. And here I was today in Frostgorge Sound teamed with a warrior for holo’s and I was just amazed to see that he/she can take 75% of mobs hp it took me to cast a single fireball + flame burst. For holo’s all I did was to cast eruption + shockwave and couldn’t do anything else because well, mobs were dead….. So I couldn’t resist and asked him what was his gear and he told me all exotic, I asked if he had any legendary weapon or ascended gear and he said no. He also told me he had nearly 150% magic find so its safe to assume he was gemmed for magic find as it was clearly evident from his 25 stacks of increased magic find sigil which I could see on him. Also when he was killing holo mobs all of them were ganging on him and I never saw him get down to 50% health ever.

I have teamed with a ranger before see him out dps me while his pet tanks the mobs so he can do anything he wants freely. So here I am, asking if I am doing something really wrong or did I pick a bad class to play?

I have played wow for about 5 years and I have seen classes gets overpowered/underpowered a bit with every patch, I have trolled and be trolled many times in wow official class balance forums but I can honestly say I haven’t seen anything like this in wow. Recently in wow patch 5.1 fire mages were overpowered and now warlocks are topping the dps meters but I am talking about 1 or 2 percent dps difference here. I am just glad GW2 doesn’t have such kind of coordinated high end gameplay like heroic raids with dps meters (recount) etc to track individuals performance or else I don’t think why anyone would want elementalist in their group. I sure as hell won’t if I am the group leader…

First off there is nothing wrong with the ele’s DPS.
This is a gear/trait/skill problem

Second off all. The staff isn’t the best DPS-weapon for the ele, it’s a AoE weapon, but for direct damage you prolly have better results with dagger/dagger and even scepter/dagger.

Furthermore I would ask you to make notes off all your stats (gearpiece by gearpiece) and tell them here. Also make a note off the skills your using and how you have your traits set up (both the traitlines, and the points in each as the chosen trait effects).

I’m pretty sure that myself and others can help you get better.

The staff is not the best dps weapon, but it perfectly able to provide enough dps to survive soloing with it as you main weapon – if, as mercury points out, you are geared, traited appropriately.

Whether you want to label me lazy or forgetful I have used staff about 95% of 1000+ hours on my ele, all the way through levelling and through dungeons and WvW, and it is my go to weapon for most situations.

As mercury says, we would need more specifics on your current build to offer specific advice. Just don’t give up on your ele – we are awesome

Thanks for the input guys, I really do appreciate you taking time to help me.
Ok I have tried different builds, when I started my ele I was all fire so I was speccing for power + precision in traits but recently I am shifting towards earth as I think fire has way too low survivability even for a cloth caster dps.

For traits, I am 30/10/30/0/0, max points in fire and earth tree and 10 in air tree. I also tried arcane tree but think air’s Bolt to the heart perk is better for dps. Upto rare all of my gear was power/precision/condition as I was regularly swapping between fire and earth but now I am getting power/vitality/condition gear since I am planning to go full earth. For earth traits, I am using +5% damage to bleeding foes, +20% bleed duration and 20% faster earth skill recharge.
I am using 5% damage increase sigil in weapon and using most of the +magic find runes in gear until I get all exotic gear.
My current attributes listed are:
Power: 1828 Attack: 2939
Precision: 1423 Crit chance: 28% (I am ditching this)
Condition damage: 989 Condition Duration: 30%
Crit damage: 10%

I have thought of using superior sigil of corruption (condition) but I don’t think it would be worth it considering how often I get downed and get revived back due to bleeds I have on mobs.

My advice would be to choose between either power/precision or condition damage – you seem to have a mix of the two which means neither of them are really performing to their best.

I used to favour condition damage and used carrion armour and a sigil of corruption, but I found that whilst soloing in particular waiting for dot (damage over time) from conditions to kill something usually meant it could still do me a lot a damage whilst alive.

Recently I called on a guild member to help me revise my build and she advised focussing more on power/precision and crit – I changed my armour from carrion to knights, made a couple of trait adjustments and away I went. Whilst I won’t say that my original condition damage build was terrible or wrong (it was a lot of fun to play), I will admit it wasn’t the most effective for my playstyle and I’m glad I changed it around.

Here’s a link to pretty much what I’m using at the moment – it shows traits, armour and accessories to give you the fuller picture. This trait build is good for me as well because when I do want to go D/D I can quickly change a couple of trait selections to turn it into an aura-sharing build.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.5|6.1n.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j|4s.0.2s.d1e.1n.67.2s.d1e.1n.67.1c.67|0.a6.0.u53b.u58b|39.1|1m.1q.1y.1u.29|e

I would also add that the Arcana trait line does have some particular nice features that a lot of ele’s would swear by, in particular evasive arcana, and for staff users there is blasting staff which gives you a larger aoe.

I am assuming you are a pvp’er because your traits allocation is more favored towards survivability then dps. Would’nt it be better to go fire/air route if you want to maximize your damage and crit chance?

And 2ndly you said either go Power/precision or condition, do you mean that power doesn’t play any significant role for earth spec? I know earth is based on bleeds and DoTs but doesn’t power increase your eruption damage and eventually dots? Maybe wrong here….

I play a staff ele and if you look through all the weapon skills, not many do condition damage, I think theres about 2 that do reasonable condition damage but no where near as good as Ranger/Necro or Engineer…

Your all about direct damage really…so Power/Precision/Crit Damage will do the the most damage…however because your squishy you after trade off between that and Power/Toughness/Vitality.

Try mixing them up until you find your sweet spot…

Also, play about with mistform/armour of earth skills, those make you survive better, just 10 trait pts in earth btw gives you 2 armour of earths…something to consider…

Also, 10 trait in air gives you a extra 33% damage vs opponents, no matter what attunement your in…

Staff is your main problem. It’s a decent weapon, but DPS on it is very limited unless the things you are fighting stand completely still.

I would recommend dagger/dagger with fire element. I tear things up. You have to get to mid-close range, which means be extra careful due to squishiness, but if you can master dodging you will see a huge DPS increase.

Lexy.3912:

My advice would be to choose between either power/precision or condition damage – you seem to have a mix of the two which means neither of them are really performing to their best.

I used to favour condition damage and used carrion armour and a sigil of corruption, but I found that whilst soloing in particular waiting for dot (damage over time) from conditions to kill something usually meant it could still do me a lot a damage whilst alive.

Recently I called on a guild member to help me revise my build and she advised focussing more on power/precision and crit – I changed my armour from carrion to knights, made a couple of trait adjustments and away I went. Whilst I won’t say that my original condition damage build was terrible or wrong (it was a lot of fun to play), I will admit it wasn’t the most effective for my playstyle and I’m glad I changed it around.

Here’s a link to pretty much what I’m using at the moment – it shows traits, armour and accessories to give you the fuller picture. This trait build is good for me as well because when I do want to go D/D I can quickly change a couple of trait selections to turn it into an aura-sharing build.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.5|6.1n.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j.1n.71j|4s.0.2s.d1e.1n.67.2s.d1e.1n.67.1c.67|0.a6.0.u53b.u58b|39.1|1m.1q.1y.1u.29|e

I would also add that the Arcana trait line does have some particular nice features that a lot of ele’s would swear by, in particular evasive arcana, and for staff users there is blasting staff which gives you a larger aoe.

That is a very expensive build …
I use something like this
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|6.1o.h17|0.0.0.0.0.0|1p.7i.1h.7i.1p.7i.1h.7i.1p.7i.1h.7i|1n.64.1n.64.1h.62.1n.64.1h.62.1a.9a|a6.a6.u29c.a5.a6|0.0|1n.1q.24.26.28|e

The amulet, 1 ring, and 1 accessory is actually a masterwork so my actual stats are lower. Used that with rare armor/major runes for a long time as well.

Works out fine for me in WvW/PvE solo and group/dungeons. Bleeding from Eruption is okay but you need 6 stacks of bleeds(and enough condition damage) before it will out damage burning. There are obviously other issues to consider such as other people in the fight since burning does not stack in intensity.

Pridedemon.3041:

I am assuming you are a pvp’er because your traits allocation is more favored towards survivability then dps. Would’nt it be better to go fire/air route if you want to maximize your damage and crit chance?

And 2ndly you said either go Power/precision or condition, do you mean that power doesn’t play any significant role for earth spec? I know earth is based on bleeds and DoTs but doesn’t power increase your eruption damage and eventually dots? Maybe wrong here….

Actually no, apart from a bit of WvW I am purely PvE. Yes my traits favour survivability, but my gear provides the power/pre/crit. As Meglobob says, ele’s are squishy and you need your survivability to come from somewhere. You can do it the other way round, draw your direct damage from your traits and use your gear to up your survivability (toughness, vit) – it is entirely up to you. Or, if you are confident in your skills to survive you can also go full berserker in everything.

Power doesn’t effect dot, that’s what your condition damage stat is for. Power may increase damage done by a secondary feature of the same attack. So, for example, Eruption (earth 2 on the staff) does bleed damage over time and it also does a direct damage hit. Any dot above the base damage listed is influenced by your condition damage stat, any direct damage above the base will be influenced by your power. Stacks of Might you may have on you will affect both direct and dot.

Khisanth.2948:

That is a very expensive build …

Yes it is, but that has been a labour of love for many months. My ele was my first 80, my main and first in the queue for exotic and ascended kit when money allows. And I probably wouldn’t kit another character out with superior divinity again, they weren’t as expensive when I started…

Builds take time and tweaking, so having a plan for your end point gear is good but should be seen as something to work towards, at least that’s how I approach it with each of my characters.