Guild Wars 2

I got my ele to level 80 with a build of 0/20/0/30/20 with berserker armor and staff. I usually play dungeons and switch between attacking and healing, but I was wondering whether toughness is important? Like I was considering on making my trinkets based on either power/toughness/vitality or berserker stats.

I haven’t added anything to the upgrade slots as I’m just confused whether to go more berserker or try even things out with toughness.

I do play wvw every now and then and I die quite easily when I get attacked via melee.
I don’t understand a lot so if you have any other opinions on what I should do, I’m definitely open.

First of all read up at the Elementalist forums. Zerker gear on ele is great for pve (note dagger/focus or scepter/dagger might/fury stacking lighnting ammer builds FAR outDPS staff) but awful for WvW on most classes, especially elementalist. For PvE Soldier’s, Knights, or some combination of that armor, maybe a few valkyrie or celestial pieces would be greatly ideal, and remember that eles benefit more from toughness in general since we have so many ways to heal our low HP pool.

A glass canon Ele has no place in WvW. That’s literally a snowflake in hell.

This guide is primarily d/d but the general remarks apply to any build.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-
the-D-D-ele-7-15-13/page/1

You can get decent WvW-oriented PVT armour from the vendors in WvW for karma at low level and badges at 80.

I hate to (partially) disagree with the above two posts, but a full PVT Elementalist is giving up a lot of DPS for vitality and toughness, which do very little to help a class that is squishy no matter what. You can start off with full PVT as you’re perfecting your play style, but eventually you’ll probably want to mix in a piece of DPS gear at a time until you find a good balance.

Toughness is absolutely horrible for Eles in PvE, IMO. This is not because of the stat itself, but because toughness is one of the factors in the game’s aggro system. If you stack too much toughness on an Ele and you have your DPS rotations down, you’re going to pull aggro constantly. Eles generally don’t handle aggro well. For this reason, if you have to choose between toughness and vitality, I would suggest going with vitality.

One additional survivability note: a superior sigil of energy on your staff can be an amazing improvement, as it activates when you swap attunements (it does have an internal cooldown of 10s, I think), and gives you an extra dodge immediately.

As far as play style, the best thing you can do is perfect using the AoE CCs, as that is really where staff Ele shines. Work the CCs into your DPS rotations, even when you’re fighting single mobs. It’s good practice for group situations like dungeons and WvW, and you’ll find you’ll also do better against PvE mobs.

The biggest thing most staff eles are terrible at is using Eruption effectively as a combo finisher. It has a significant delay, so you’ll need to practice the timing to make it effective. You have a ton of combo fields that work very well with blast finishers, so this is important even if you’re also using Arcane Wave. Since you said you switch between DPS and healing/group support (which any Ele should do while attunement dancing), it’s worth practicing the timing with placing Eruption and then immediately swapping to water and getting a Geyser or Healing Rain on top of it for an AoE heal. Eruption + Geyser is probably the trickiest of all of the staff Ele’s self-combos, so if you can get a feel for that, the others will seem much easier.

As far as solo roaming in WvW, there really isn’t much you can do against other players as a staff Ele. Staff isn’t set up as a solo PvP weapon. It’s set up for group play. However, the same CCs that are extremely effective in group combat are very good for escaping other players when they try to gank you. You’re just not likely to DPS them down, although I have seen it done.

Hope all of that helps…/walloftext :P

Vick.6805:

I hate to (partially) disagree with the above two posts, but a full PVT Elementalist is giving up a lot of DPS for vitality and toughness, which do very little to help a class that is squishy no matter what. You can start off with full PVT as you’re perfecting your play style, but eventually you’ll probably want to mix in a piece of DPS gear at a time until you find a good balance.

Toughness is absolutely horrible for Eles in PvE, IMO. This is not because of the stat itself, but because toughness is one of the factors in the game’s aggro system. If you stack too much toughness on an Ele and you have your DPS rotations down, you’re going to pull aggro constantly. Eles generally don’t handle aggro well. For this reason, if you have to choose between toughness and vitality, I would suggest going with vitality.

One additional survivability note: a superior sigil of energy on your staff can be an amazing improvement, as it activates when you swap attunements (it does have an internal cooldown of 10s, I think), and gives you an extra dodge immediately.

As far as play style, the best thing you can do is perfect using the AoE CCs, as that is really where staff Ele shines. Work the CCs into your DPS rotations, even when you’re fighting single mobs. It’s good practice for group situations like dungeons and WvW, and you’ll find you’ll also do better against PvE mobs.

The biggest thing most staff eles are terrible at is using Eruption effectively as a combo finisher. It has a significant delay, so you’ll need to practice the timing to make it effective. You have a ton of combo fields that work very well with blast finishers, so this is important even if you’re also using Arcane Wave. Since you said you switch between DPS and healing/group support (which any Ele should do while attunement dancing), it’s worth practicing the timing with placing Eruption and then immediately swapping to water and getting a Geyser or Healing Rain on top of it for an AoE heal. Eruption + Geyser is probably the trickiest of all of the staff Ele’s self-combos, so if you can get a feel for that, the others will seem much easier.

As far as solo roaming in WvW, there really isn’t much you can do against other players as a staff Ele. Staff isn’t set up as a solo PvP weapon. It’s set up for group play. However, the same CCs that are extremely effective in group combat are very good for escaping other players when they try to gank you. You’re just not likely to DPS them down, although I have seen it done.

Hope all of that helps…/walloftext :P

Thank you so much! Your reply helped me heaps

Contiguous.1345:

A glass canon Ele has no place in WvW. That’s literally a snowflake in hell.

No, that’s a figurative snowflake in hell.

Kahzi.5467:

Contiguous.1345:

A glass canon Ele has no place in WvW. That’s literally a snowflake in hell.

No, that’s a figurative snowflake in hell.

What if he’s on water attunement?

Zomaarwat.3912:

Kahzi.5467:

Contiguous.1345:

A glass canon Ele has no place in WvW. That’s literally a snowflake in hell.

No, that’s a figurative snowflake in hell.

What if he’s on water attunement?

Still figurative.