Guild Wars 2

I took a long break from this game because I got very frustrated at the sudden ramp up of difficulty once you get to the end game.

I play as an Elementalist and I got through all of the personal story and 100% the world with quite possibly the stupidest build in the history of this game. I had random traits and was slowly killing things one at a time with Earth staff, slowly waiting for the bleed stacks to kill each enemy. I am absolutely convinced that you can do this game with literally any build if I managed with that.

Now that I am starting to play the dungeons and fractles I’ve had to obviously change my build, now I tend to run a staff in water mode and keep spamming my water skills, occasionally dropping an ice bow or a firey great sword. I’m following some cookie cutter build that I don’t understand fully because the elementalist traits are really confusing to me.

However, I don’t really feel that I am making all that much difference to the team, the water heals for very little compared to the damage output of the dungeon monsters, and although I think the removal of conditions is extremely useful I do get the feeling that these teams would be able to run it 4 man without me.

I spoke to a more experienced guildie and he says as an ele you should be reacting to the enviroment, watch your team, stand in to tank when you see the tank failing, heal when they need it, dps when they need it etc etc.

This is way way way out of my depth, I’m new to MMOs and I’d much rather have a single role that I could learn to master. I know the hype is “you can do anything” but I’m sure there must be more specialised roles out there. So what should I do? I could stick as an Ele but I don’t think I’ll have much fun, I’d rather play as something easier, then again maybe I should stick with it based on all the time I’ve invested

Many thanks

Elementalists are a hard class to play, especially someone new to MMO’s. What attracts people to the ele is the ability to do all those things at the same time.
I wont tell you to make a new class but I want you to think of it this way. The elementalist has 4 attunements as im sure you are aware ( F1-F4 by default). Each of those has a primary role to fill and all 4 should be used. I feel as though understanding the point of these attunements may make it easier for you to understand the true potential of the class and how to use them.

Fire is damage. This is where your big hitters are. Most of the fire skills tend to do lots of damage, and are usually AOE (hit more than 1 enemy).

Water is support. Most of the skills in here tend to be some sort of heal or regen.

Air is Single Target Damage/Control. This is where your single target damage comes. Usually the damage isn’t as high as some of the fire damage skills are, and it tends to only affect 1 guy (or very limited). Also you tend to be able to stun enemies or blind them.

Earth is Condition Damage and Control and Defense. This is where your bleeds/Immobilize/Knockdowns are. Basically most of the stuff inflicts bleed on the enemy and makes it really annoying to fight you.

The problem also comes with most of the PVE being too easy, it teaches people bad habits of being able to just sit there and spam a few skills and watch the enemy die. It allows people to level up to higher levels and then get hit by that hard curve when you try your 1st dungeon or fractal and realize “oh crap, I have to actually pay attention now instead of sleep at my keyboard”

So it seems like you are really focusing on one attunement. Which is the opposite of what Ele should do and 4 attunements is what makes it the most difficult class to learn for newer players.

That said, In PvE you just DPS, DPS, DPS. As an Ele your job is to drop IB and FGS for the group. You should be running full Berserker Stat gear as well. There is no tank, or support in PvE, only DPS.

I would recommend you practice changing and memorizing what each skill does in all attunements to begin with. Then memorizing what you need to use in IB and FGS (2/4 & 3, 4 , 5)

Now if you are 100% against learning Ele right now just reroll as a Warrior, Warrior is the most forgiving class in GW2 as well as the 2nd or 3rd highest damage output.

If you want throw me a mail in game/ add me to your friends list and PM when I’m online and I can try to help ya out.

Thank you for the reply, I do kind of understand how each element does something a little different but the problem I have is I’ve gone from very easy to super hard in one second and I just feel overwhelmed. I don’t even know which weapons I’m supposed to use any more. A lot of people rave about the daggers then some times they say use the sceptre and the dagger. All the guides are full of contradicting information or tell you to use the most expensive possible gear in the game with no offered alternatives.

I wish that the PVE hadn’t been so easy. At least in Guild Wars 1 there were points where you had to stop and improve so the overall difficulty was more gradual such as the crystal desert.

I think really I need to play a new class, one where there is a very solid build that I can master and guides that are in a similar vein rather than being binary opposites.

What I did was just not bother with dungeons. I farmed Karma and got some Exotic pieces that way. I could probably do dungeons now, but just can’t be bothered. There are lots of other things to do at 80, you don’t have to do dungeons if you don’t want to, or are finding them too difficult.

The things with Elementalist-guides is that Elementalist has a lot of builds that are viable and are expected to adjust on the teams needs. Banzie is completely right, currently all what PvE-content needs is DPS and sadly any other options are left in the dust, but we have multiple ways to do so. This is an amazing feature, but it can be quite overwhelming.

I’d like to recommend you to stick with 1 weapon; Staff. Staff is currently one of the highest DPS-options in game, but more specific to your situation, it’s incredibly easy to play.

Recommened Traits/Build: 6/2/2/2/2
This is not the highest DPS-build for Staff, how-ever Blasting Staff if great for Trash/Moving Targets, hence I recommend it. You can chose to use Glyph of Storms over Signet of Fire. If used in Earth it will Blind, making Trash + stacking a lot easier to survive. As for Gear, Berserker is the best option, how-ever if you feel you need more survivability a few bits and pieces of Knights gear won’t hurt, Elementalists will how-ever always be once of the squishiest classes. Rune-wise Scholar is still Best in Slot (3g each last time I checked) and Rune of Strenght is easier in use (8g/each last time I checked. If Scholar is too expensive, any rune with +Power or +Percision will do in the meanwhile. Ruby Orbs aren’t great but are also worth considering, all depend on your budget. Food such as Omnomberry Ghost, Slice of Candied Dragon Roll or Omnomberry Pie can help you survive, aswell as Slaying Potions (very cheap for a 8%-10% damage Reduction!)

How to play:
Use Fire #2 Lava Font on Recharge, Fire #5 Meteor Shower on Large Targets or a group of Targets. Fill with Fire #1 Fireball. Which means most of the time you’re pressing: #2 > Auto-attack 4x > #2 > Auto-attack 4x > #2. It’s incredibly boring, but it sounds like it will suit you whilst getting used to the harder content.

Upon Enagement it can be helpful to start in Earth and cast Earth #2 Eruption, swap to Fire, Fire #2 Lava Font > Arcane Brilliance > Arcane Wave for a bit more Might/Fury for the group.

Remember to stay near your group to receive buffs (Stability, Condi Cleanse, Might, Fury etc.) How-ever if you’re taking too much pressure and there’s no need to stack, feel free to take a breather by sitting at range for a bit. It isn’t optimal, but if it prevents a down.

When a boss is against a wall, people generally expect you to drop FGS. To use FGS make sure you don’t have a Target Selected (turn auto-targetting off in your settings) and use #4 and #3 against the wall for big damage. Remember #3 is an evade aswell.

That’s about it for a Fight. Outside of Combat remember to use Air #4 for Swiftness and you can chose to use Water #5 and 3 if your party is taking too much heat at the cost of your own DPS, but as you’ve noticed, healing in this game is rather weak. Fire#4 is an Evade which can be used through the boss or against the wall. Experiment a little whilst you get more used to the game.

Once you get more used to the instances I’d recommend to try out some more builds. The Elementalist Forums have wonderful stickies, I’d recommend DEKeys guides (they should get updated in the coming week or so.) She’s also incredibly helpful if you wish to talk to a very experienced Elementalist.

Thanks for the help and thank you for the build! I really needed help with my traits and that seems to work splendidly, I went to southsun cove and found that I could solo level 80s with ease and didn’t have to switch between all the attunements trying to heal and find the damage. It’s amazing how much of your characters strength is having the right setup, I wish I had known that a year ago!

I spent a good 12 hours playing today on a massive binge and did some dungeon paths and a lot of the world events. I made about 10 gold and 14 ectos using this build, it’s helped me an awful lot, although something I’ve noticed is that I am doing a lot less than a lot of the other players, but maybe that will come later when my skills get better.
I have a question about that though, 14 ectos is only about 5 golds worth and in a similar amount of time I made 10 from this dungeon team, why do people bother with the world events if you can just run dungeons and buy ectos?

I was talking to a guildie about ascended today. I feel that it is a nice goal to go for but I worry that I am wasting my money. A guildie told me that it will cost about 80 gold to go from 400 to 500 and then a further 40 for each ascended weapon. Somehow, I don’t really see how I can make that money back using this, seeing as it is only a 5% increase, it means that I would have to earn roughly 2400 gold with this weapon before it makes its value back. I know that the ascended is entirely optional but I can’t really shake this little feeling that I’m doing it wrong if I’m not playing with the most optimised build.

MerlinGamer.7410:

Thanks for the help and thank you for the build! I really needed help with my traits and that seems to work splendidly, I went to southsun cove and found that I could solo level 80s with ease and didn’t have to switch between all the attunements trying to heal and find the damage. It’s amazing how much of your characters strength is having the right setup, I wish I had known that a year ago!

I spent a good 12 hours playing today on a massive binge and did some dungeon paths and a lot of the world events. I made about 10 gold and 14 ectos using this build, it’s helped me an awful lot, although something I’ve noticed is that I am doing a lot less than a lot of the other players, but maybe that will come later when my skills get better.
I have a question about that though, 14 ectos is only about 5 golds worth and in a similar amount of time I made 10 from this dungeon team, why do people bother with the world events if you can just run dungeons and buy ectos?

I was talking to a guildie about ascended today. I feel that it is a nice goal to go for but I worry that I am wasting my money. A guildie told me that it will cost about 80 gold to go from 400 to 500 and then a further 40 for each ascended weapon. Somehow, I don’t really see how I can make that money back using this, seeing as it is only a 5% increase, it means that I would have to earn roughly 2400 gold with this weapon before it makes its value back. I know that the ascended is entirely optional but I can’t really shake this little feeling that I’m doing it wrong if I’m not playing with the most optimised build.

People farm ectos because they are used in almost every high level receipe and can be salvaged for Piles of Crystalline Dust and a large amount of luck, increasing your MF.

Don’t mistake receiving gold as receiving profit; there’s a difference. There are many ways for your character to profit and while it may seem that earning gold straight up is the best way, eventually you’ll feel the lack of Magic Find hurting you or you won’t have enough crafting materials to create your items.

Its far more expensive to order all your materials (especially Globs of Ectoplasm) from the Trading post than to have farmed them out yourself and used MF promotion.

Also, Elementalist isn’t really “great” in any gear besides Celestial. They can do good in Berserker in PvE (highest DPS of all classes, but blink and you die), and defensive, supportive sets such as Clerics in WvW, but ultimately you’re always going to feel like a trash mob with your low stats, which is why most Eles go for Celestial.

Its just hard to compensate for having the lowest armor and lowest health in the game compared to the other classes, because you can’t just go damage duet o your high base health (Warrior, Necromancer), nor conditions due to your ability to Bunker (Ranger, Engineer) and lack the protection of stealth (Mesmer, Thief).

Its often regarded as the most difficult, overnerfed, hardcore class.

Well I do tend to crack all my greens and blues for the luck. I am not hurting for magic find at the moment and it is steadily increasing.

I suppose really after you’ve run all the dungeon paths you are comfortable with then its the best time to go and do the world events? Or is it more that the world events rarely (never?) fail, so it’s more reliable then finding a good team? Even if Ectos go as high as 40 silver, I can still buy 15 for 6 gold and have 4 gold change.

I’m not too worried about materials for crafting, I was looking at buying the exotic version of the beserker’s staff after seeing how crushingly expensive ascended is, and despite it being the most expensive of the crafted staffs to buy, it is still less than 75% of the cost of crafting it yourself, Artificers seem quite unlucky in that regard, with some staffs even going for less than 40% of the crafting cost. Of course, you can’t do this with ascended, but like I say, I’m still not sure if it is worth it.