Guild Wars 2

I am having a lot of trouble in dungeons. I have re-bought all my gear (level 30ish) to give me toughness and vitality (other than my weps), re-speced for more toughness (10 points in earth), and I dodge anything that I can see coming.

I still spend more time on the floor trying to heal myself then I do running around. I use blind (for 3 seconds I “tank a mob”) and immobilize (This is pretty useless as most mobs will just stand and fire at you). My other two slots are filled with Elementals because they seem to pull aggro and help me live when they are up.

It seems like for the most part, the damage that is killing me in a couple of shots and is not telegraphed in anyway; it’s meant to be soaked. The few things that do damage me with red rings popup and start the bleeds less than .5 seconds after the ring appears. I am getting around 40 FPS in dungeons so I don’t know if its a graphics issue.

I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I have spent a lot of time trying to get “tankier” but it doesn’t seem to work. I have to wonder why there are even clothy classes in a game where the damage is dealt equally. Shouldn’t we all have the same armor? The random shots that go out take me down way faster than my heal comes off CD (normally I die with 3 or 4 seconds left on it, while dodging around trying to evade the best I can).

I am lost, I am starting to wonder if the Tank/Healer/DPS roles are in MMO’s because they are needed to some extent. The heal skills I have (Water) don’t do near enough healing to be useful. They heal for 50-80 a tick at my level, and only if you stand in one place. The mobs are dishing out 400-500 damage per shot. I’m lost on how this tankless, healess world is supposed to work for anyone but heavy armor players.

TLDR:
Any entimentalists out there that are actually surviving dungeons? If so what are you using?

my only advice i can give you is trait your condition removal as we have the lowest health of all the classes and are all glass no cannon at all. Most have parked their elementalists until Anet fixes them or tells us if they are balanced or not. Best thing you can kinda do is what you are doing , stack vitality and toughness and rest in power , use your free 5 crits every 45 seconds and just try and hang in there. The class just gets downed a lot and anyone in here that plays one to 80 can tell you , you are going to die a lot here or at least be downed in their current state. Condition removal and maybe mist or blink might help , but dungeons are a real challenge for our class to survive spike damage.

Ele here, almost always is last to die in dungeons.
I’ll tell you a secret. Heavy armor users are also suffering from damage if it comes straight to their face. And, for dungeons dont bother to get “tanky” or something. Build yourself only for traits you think will be useful. Gearing should be power/persicion/cond. dmg. Maybe some healing.

About surviving. With so many kiting and control options for ele, I’m actually wondering how you even manage to take hits? Not talking about zergling rush events here ofc.
I’m going to write what I am using for dungeons. Staff weapon – obviously. Water and earth to control, heal and mass-dot. If I’m out of danger completely – switch to fire and just burn things away. Utility skills – signet of earth, arcane shield, signet of water, elite elementals glyph for most single boss fights. For example, holding Lt. Kholer an entire time upstairs with this setup, while rest of party killing adds downstairs. Can also kill champion cave troll on my own (it will take hell of a time though). For zerg rush – arcane power and arcane wave, in place of signets.

Well… thats all basically. Good luck.

It might because we are pugs, but there always seems to be 5+ mobs a pull. 2 of them are running around trying to smash in my face with a hammer sword while at least one ranged is always on me. The fights seem to last ~5 mins, either with most CC only lasting ~5 seconds with a 45 seconds CD I find myself taking a lot of hits.

Maybe its time to check out youtube and see what I am doing wrong.

Thanks for the advice though, both of you. I will try changing up some skill slots and see if that helps. If not its off to play a melee for me I guess.

Urmmm if you are having trouble playing ranged in dungeons, i dont think you will like playing melee…

I havent played any other dungeon apart from AC, and all i can say is remember the 5D’s of dodgeball…

On a more serious note, burn down the ranged mobs first whilst kiting around melee, if you have any melee in your group, get them on the ranged mob to start, then break off onto the melee mob to save your sweet hiney…and repeat. We have a lot of kiting mechanics as an ele, especially whilst using a staff.

If you’re wearing lvl 30-ish gear, I think we’ve found your problem.

Give it some time and practice. I did two CM runs yesterday with 3 eles in the group where no one died. Yes, some people got downed, but no one died.

It especially takes practice if you’re used to other mmorpgs, and AC trash is particularly difficult.

OmegaNine.9148:

It might because we are pugs, but there always seems to be 5+ mobs a pull. 2 of them are running around trying to smash in my face with a hammer sword while at least one ranged is always on me. The fights seem to last ~5 mins, either with most CC only lasting ~5 seconds with a 45 seconds CD I find myself taking a lot of hits.

Yikes. I assume since you mentioned level 30 gear, you are doing AC. This is the only one I’ve done so far, but I’ve successfully done it several times (engineer here). I run only with my guild and we pull 2-3 (usually 1-2) mobs at a time. Five is too many in AC. I’m not sure what our Elementalist’s setup is, but I know he both damages and heals when he can. He gets downed sometimes, but rarely dies. He’s always been a very good player though – he says it’s because he asian.

Managing pulls is very important, and as an Ele, staying further back than the bulkier prof’s is going to be a good idea too. Like Amos said, 5 mobs at a time is a bad pull, heh. Try to get your group to focus a little more, and set priorities on the scarier mobs to pile on first (ghost Ele’s, ghost Rangers). Also, don’t waste your immobilizes on the ranged mobs, like you said, it’s not effective. Pop your immobilizes on the melee mobs that are trying to collapse your skull with a hammer and roll back.