Guild Wars 2

I’ve been having major issues with my elementalist. If I fight any bosses, they kill me in 1-2 hits and when downed I’m killed in one more hit. My armor is not broken when I fight bosses, though I’ve spent so much on repairing armor that I’m pretty poor.

Currently I’m level 30 and my character is just plain weak. The offensive spells are weak compared to every other player out there that seems to be able to take monsters down in 5-6 hits and be able to take damage without near death. I’m really getting frustrated and wondering if I made a bad decision on jumping into this game.

On thing I can say with my initial week or two experience, I never played a MMO where my character died nearly as much.

Yeah, elementalists need a lot of rebalancing. They need to have their damage upped a lot, so that they’re not getting out damaged by warriors, whow ear heavy armor and can tank a million hits.

It will happen, but currently, elementalists are very kittened. It’s too bad, too, because they’re really fun to play.

I always seem to choose the worst class when I play a new MMO, glad I’m not alone.

Hiya Lockey.

Elementalists are best suited to long-range attack and support spells during boss fights. The reason you’re dying in 1-2 hits is because you’re probably not casting from maximum range. Also, it sounds like your not managing your attunements all that well (no insult intended.) An elementalist has a vast skill pool upon which they can call as and when they feel like, however it needs to be properly managed via attunement switching.

Some advice for boss fights: utilise the heavy AoE abilities of a Fire-attuned Staff Elementalist whilst switching to Water Attunement for those nice AoE healing spells. That should a.) allow you to contribute significantly based on damage and b.) provide excellent support to your allies and keep them in the fight for longer.

I hope this helped. Good luck out there.

Ok so a few questions.
1: Are you a glass cannon? If so yes your going to die a ton.
2: If not 1 is your gear up to your level?
3: Do you use your dodge correctly or are you just using it whenever its up?

I have been playing one since the beginning and it seems to me that the only way to play this is to play tanky, if I do that I simply don’t do enough damage without switching between all my elements. My “pets” are on too long of a CD to be useful and without them I die to easily.

I’m level 17 so I don’t have that much experience. I’m still undecided which places to invest my traits in but atm it seems I will just go with fire attunement. What I have learned is to just stay back and let everyone else take damage for me. If I’m being attacked I will switch to air attunement and use a speed boost to run away. The staff has a couple of useful combos mostly between fire+earth and water+earth. Make sure you use dodge when your opponent is preparing a powerful attack (it is usually obvious, they have a special animation). You can also use dodge to get out of aoe fields (they are red lines in a circle).

Ele is my main and I can definitely say that the class is not weak. Against everyday mobs I use dual daggers, usually attuned to fire, and typically completely own face. At and around melee range. Because I just do so much damage to things that they can hardly kill me before I kill them. Against bosses, you definitely should be standing back using ranged powers, like a staff, and of course switching elements, as has been said. Now, the class definitely can die quickly if you`re not careful, but what else do you expect from a light armour class? Every class requires mobility, but the scholars definitely moreso because they`re squishy. If you`re not moving around, you`re doing it wrong.

The answers are only partialy correct. What i mean by that is: when there’s an uncontrolled situation where multiple mobs run around aggroing people randomly in the instance it’s much harder for an elementalist to survive compared to some heavy armoured guys. Ofc u can chill, dodge etc like i do all the time, but still i get 3 shoted by long range attacks. Survivability’s very poor IF u get someone to attack u in a way that’s uncontrollable to u. (AoEs, poisons, arrows etc.)

As for myself i try to get as many sustain 7,8,9 skills as possible. Using arcane shield, the stony face spell reduce incoming dmg. I also have 30 points in arcane giving me arcane power and shield so i basicaly pop my 6ability arcane shield when i get attacked, 7 to reduce dmg taken. If i can’t get away another shield comes up when i drop bellow 25% so it’s much easier to survive. U get a bit reduced dmg but since reduced dmg’s better than being dead for 30s it’s worth it.

I’m experiencing the same with PvP; i see guardians catching me as an air elementalist with +68% movespeed; AFTER GETTING STUNNED ASWELL. Itskitten damage is fineish; needs a slight buff; but air elementalist is supposed to be fastest in the game and its not; by far

Arcane shield gets a buff and we are good, we don’t need damage. maybe another second and another hit on it sounds good

I learn’t this while playing wizard in diablo 3, do not go all out on damage attributes (intelligence in d3) and skills. I think Gizzox has the right idea. Focus on damage reducing skills for utility. Your weapon skills provide enough damage.

i dont get 1-2 shoot being an elementalist, but a little buff on damage would be good too honestly

Go to Divinity’s Reach, find the elementalist trainer, buy a trait point reset manual, put some points into Water attunement . Done.

I forgot to mention that I’m unable to use traits, I’ve already submitted a bug report so waiting on them.

I’ve got no idea what “class cannon” means, I’ve never played the first Guild Wars.

When asking other players in-game how to get pets, they said only rangers get them. How do I get a pet? The closest thing I have are those elementals in the elite skills, but they don’t last nearly long enough…waste of skill points.

My armor is between level 25-30 right now including all accessories except “back” cannot figure out what goes there. I’ve gotten rings and amulets off the ingame market.

Some things that have helped me in playing an ele…

I primarily run dagger/dagger. I’ve focused on increasing my Power and my Toughness over Precision and Vitality. I’ve had to learn to sort of “test out” the various attunements on different foes – they have different weaknesses to different attunements than we’ve come to expect in most RPGs. For example, “MMO logic” tells us that an ice-based foe is probably weakened by fire… in GW2, that’s not necessarily true. But I can usually take them down very quickly with air – my electrified whip thing beats them into the ground. LOL

There’s also a lot of synergy in the elementalist bars… in air, leading with your 5 skill deals damage and knocks you and your foe away from each other. Your 4 skill rushes you back into melee range with another heap of damage (not to mention the foe is disoriented or stunned in this combo). Following up with a 3 & 2, and finishing them off with a couple of 1’s and you’re done – ready for the next nasty.

Earth is similarly arranged… and the AoE of the 5 skill is just sweet.

It’s not like other games… I’m going to go down if I just mash my 1 skill. I’ve had to really pay attention to my bars and to what they do. But I’m becoming a lot more effective in the process.

LightningLockey.5938:

I forgot to mention that I’m unable to use traits, I’ve already submitted a bug report so waiting on them.

I’ve got no idea what “class cannon” means, I’ve never played the first Guild Wars.

When asking other players in-game how to get pets, they said only rangers get them. How do I get a pet? The closest thing I have are those elementals in the elite skills, but they don’t last nearly long enough…waste of skill points.

My armor is between level 25-30 right now including all accessories except “back” cannot figure out what goes there. I’ve gotten rings and amulets off the ingame market.

I believe the phrase is glass cannon not class cannon. What it means is you die easily for the trade off for high damage.

I duo with an ele. Im a tanky guardian. The ele will outlast me in a fight. Does twice my damage (Ok may not do twice my damage but still more than me) and normally has as much or more hp than me. They arnt weak. You just cant build a glass cannon and stand still.

Edit: I also know that hes always watching everything around us. If he over agro’s he runs to me knowing that while hes right ontop of me i have a lot of group support skills to prolong his life. And hes not afraid to swap elements.

No way their DPS is so high, and the pets own no need to up it at all unless that’s a troll. I love it, only thing is medium arm classes are right behind on the squishy factor both can die in a blink. It’s not a plate class or melee so expect it to die from melee faster it’s the trade off for top range dps
.

kilopy.2173:

Yeah, elementalists need a lot of rebalancing. They need to have their damage upped a lot, so that they’re not getting out damaged by warriors, whow ear heavy armor and can tank a million hits.

It will happen, but currently, elementalists are very kittened. It’s too bad, too, because they’re really fun to play.

I always seem to choose the worst class when I play a new MMO, glad I’m not alone.

Amon that’s wrong…It’s a waste of points to use them in water just to get vitality. IF u want vitality that much i’d be better to go vitality+power+condition dmg instead of precision or something . But u still need fire specialization if u ask me…
30 fire 0earth 10water 30 arcane for myself

LightningLockey…the pets u can summon are good. If u summon 0 any form of pet it’s quite a boost. Phoenix hitting up to 1k AoE having enought hp to last a while. Stone minion gives u the chance to take out 5 enemies without taking a single hit. Air pet heals u and does long range dmg if u can’t send him close range. Water pet kitting the ones following u etc… How can u say it’s not worth it

For weapons, I usually switch between scepter and dagger / staff. I keep forgetting about the combos for the focus and just two daggers. It is unfortunate that there isn’t a way to set those weapon sets up and switch between them like in most RPGs.

If I would “tank” then the monsters have been able to heal themselves at times or it just takes forever to kill a single monster. When multiple gang up on me, my defeat only takes a little bit longer so I’ve just gotten as good as possible with trying to kill them before they get to me.

my Ele is now level 48 and i have run plenty of Spvp in different builds and World vs World groups, Ive used every weapon setup and attunement and my normal rotation uses 3-4 attunements. From the many matches in pvp my guild runs I can tell you these guys acting like the class is great are so far full of it its not even funny. This class DPS except in melee range dual dagger is subpar to just about all other classes currently in game. The mesmer for example does more damage then a ele in a full vitality/Toughness tank build with a greatsword and has more health and more defense. There is no such thing as glass cannon in this game with the ele , you deal way to low of damage and your utility is more a chore to use then any other class. This class is only for shooting fireballs down and healing debuffs from towers in WvW, thats about it. Show me statistical numbers where we can out damage any other class please and weapons? I know you cant here already as Ive been playing this class since beta 1.

Gizzox,

I didn’t know that you can control the summoned elementals. How do I do that? They just “float” around me and randomly attack stuff as of now.

Facehooks.9012:

I’m experiencing the same with PvP; i see guardians catching me as an air elementalist with +68% movespeed; AFTER GETTING STUNNED ASWELL. Itskitten damage is fineish; needs a slight buff; but air elementalist is supposed to be fastest in the game and its not; by far

Well guardians have a speed boost skill also and a few sort of teleport to target skill, so that’s probably why he can catch up to you.

My ele dies allot as well. However I kind of expect it since I out damage most other classes 3-4 level higher than I am. Being squishy is the price for such power IMO. My biggest issue with my ele is the fact that all the slows/ blinds etc are really not very effective at all. To slow a mob for 3 seconds in pve just to have it race right back into your face 1/2 second later…makes the skills feel useless.

they attack ur target pretty much i think, though i cought it attacking a mob on it’s own too a couple of times ( mob not in combat) which is sort of weird

Xile have u seen a hunter dealing 7k+ shot yet? It takes u 5s to catch up

As a lvl80 elementalist I can say when you go down the map it gets hard to solo. I use a lot off kite but in the higher regions that almost impossible. It sucks you need a group.

no elementalist in this game is dealing 7k a shot crits are only doing like 4k with full prec and power builds.

Tip: when u die go whisp form, switch to character celect, log in…u’ll spawn 100%hp losing all aggro -_- (the one thing that shouldn’t get fixed imo)

scourn.6042:

no elementalist in this game is dealing 7k a shot crits are only doing like 4k with full prec and power builds.

A warrior with a crit build can hit for 25k. And still wear heavy armor.

Elementalists need to do more damage if our squishiness is justified at all. There should be no question that elementalists do the most damage of any class.

This isn’t really a new player question, and this isn’t a general discussion, though.

I’m starting to get lost in some of this unique GW-termonology. What does “kite” and “kitten” mean?

It also sounds like the elementalist is the worse class to play. What makes matters worse for me is the main reason I came here was because of the elementalist class.

Guess I’m just bad at picking MMO’s and I’m really stuck with this one for the next few months until I can move.

Are you ele’s taking into consideration the thousands of burning damage you put on mobs aoe? Ele’s burn stuff faster than about anything i have ever seen.

I have both a Ele and a hunter even though the Ele isn’t 80 like the hunter it deals more heavy hits and crits, and both can take about the same hits. In Dung Eles are used as heals and heavy dps/CC almost don’t want to run a Dung without one.

Dmg’s not the problem rly. It’s the dmg/squishy ratio. and the fact that u can only use the staff.

kilopy.2173:

scourn.6042:

no elementalist in this game is dealing 7k a shot crits are only doing like 4k with full prec and power builds.

A warrior with a crit build can hit for 25k. And still wear heavy armor.

Elementalists need to do more damage if our squishiness is justified at all. There should be no question that elementalists do the most damage of any class.

This isn’t really a new player question, and this isn’t a general discussion, though.

That warrior crit is on a real monster mob or one of those cute harmless bunnies hoping around?

LightningLockey.5938:

I forgot to mention that I’m unable to use traits, I’ve already submitted a bug report so waiting on them.

Possibly a stupid question, but have you bought your trait book from the elementalist trainer? You can’t assign traits until you buy the adept book.

These dungeons your talking about, are you talking about instanced dungeons or what we have now? If your talking instanced dungeon runs, how do you do them?

Thanks for the advice, I have to go to work now so will read everything later.

I used to die a lot on my Ele in my mid 30s. Elementalist is VERY reliant on gear. If your gear is not up to date you will die a lot. I recently rolled a warrior. At low level (in very outdated gear), I ran into a Vet mob about 3 levels higher, it barely scratched me…. That would be instant death on an ele lol.
→Try to keep your weapons/armor updated and you will die A LOT less.

check out your weapon sets and see what kinds of options you have. unless you’re using dagger main-hand, you should be able to maintain a distance. even after getting to 80, i’m still practicing using my weapons on my ranger to avoid damage. maybe you should try ranger since the pets make it a little more forgiving with aggro.

between gear, traits and utility skills you can either exhagerate your focus or compensate fot your weaknesses. maybe make an adjustment to gear, utilities or gear…

People need to stop looking at this game as if class selection really makes that big of an impact on what type of character you can make them. My elementalist is earth/water spec, I run around usually with dual daggers almost always in earth attunement, I have better defense than my guardian, can tank anything, and can run into a large group of enemies and drop a Churning Earth to kill all of them at once (after a couple seconds of bleeding). If you ignore defenses on any class you will die in 1-2 hits, this includes warriors and guardians, if you instead stack toughness and defensive skills you can take hits from any boss with ease on any class. You aren’t fragile because you are an elementalist, you are fragile because you have low toughness.

LightningLockey.5938:

I’m starting to get lost in some of this unique GW-termonology. What does “kite” and “kitten” mean?

It also sounds like the elementalist is the worse class to play. What makes matters worse for me is the main reason I came here was because of the elementalist class.

Guess I’m just bad at picking MMO’s and I’m really stuck with this one for the next few months until I can move.

Kiting basically means keeping foes at a distance while doing damage and usually luring them where you want them.

I’ve noticed that some people use kiting when what they really mean is circle strafing (circling around the foe while dealing damage).

I disagree that the elementalist is the worst class to play… I think the elementalist requires a lot of strategizing and that it takes time to become familiar with the skill bars and how they work together. You’ve not only got multiple weapons & weapon combos (Staff, Wand/Focus, Wand/Dagger, Dagger/Focus, Dagger/Dagger), but within each of those you have four different attunements. Plus your heal, plus your 3 utility skills, plus your elite.

People seem to spec into the Vitality line a lot… but that’s really not where you need your boosts. Power is damage, Toughness is durability – spec’ing into those turns you into a nuclear bomb with tanking power.

But you HAVE to actually learn the skill bars. You can’t just button mash the elementalist like you can in most other games. It simply doesn’t function that way.

And I say this as someone who has always chosen an elemental/sorceress/wizard/caster role in every MMO and RPG I’ve played… I say this as someone who is a queen of button-mashing… I say this as someone who could have never verbalized WHY a skill bar works well beyond “it blows stuff up fast.”

The ele in GW2 doesn’t perform the way it does in other games… it’s not just a bomb you detonate and watch the foes fall while someone else is responsible for keeping you alive.

My suggestion would be to get the trait thing sorted out (again, have you purchased and used your Trait book? You have to double-click it after you acquire it) and then go back to the 1-15 starter zones. Start playing around with the various weapon combinations, and examine your skill bar starting with the 5th skill and going left to the 1st skill. Look at how it often seems that the 5th skill is your lead attack – the one you should START your attack chain with… and how the skills in 4, 3, 2 & 1 support it.

Then start practicing on lower-level mobs. Load up dagger/dagger attuned to earth. Go find a group of charr or something…run around and aggro a few of them into a group. Hold down your 5 key until it detonates…then follow with 4, 3, 2… and finish off stragglers with 1.

Watch them fall and collect your loot.

Astasia.1459:

People need to stop looking at this game as if class selection really makes that big of an impact on what type of character you can make them. My elementalist is earth/water spec, I run around usually with dual daggers almost always in earth attunement, I have better defense than my guardian, can tank anything, and can run into a large group of enemies and drop a Churning Earth to kill all of them at once (after a couple seconds of bleeding). If you ignore defenses on any class you will die in 1-2 hits, this includes warriors and guardians, if you instead stack toughness and defensive skills you can take hits from any boss with ease on any class. You aren’t fragile because you are an elementalist, you are fragile because you have low toughness.

What you said is patently false.

If you want to use daggers as an elementalist, you are forced into melee range. And, I have 10 points into Earth spec, and still get one shot. I refuse to use a certain attunement because that is the only viable way to make an elementalist not outclassed by every other class in the game. That is not balanced.

kilopy.2173:

What you said is patently false.

If you want to use daggers as an elementalist, you are forced into melee range. And, I have 10 points into Earth spec, and still get one shot. I refuse to use a certain attunement because that is the only viable way to make an elementalist not outclassed by every other class in the game. That is not balanced.

That’s sort of a waste. You put 10 points into an element that gives a bonus for being attuned to it then complain when you die while not attuned? The 100 toughness from 10 points in the line is hardly useful alone. At level 25 on my elementalist I had over 600 defense while standing still, closer to 700 while channeling. You also need to be stacking toughness on your gear if you want to be able to take hits. If that isn’t your intention then don’t bother with it, go all offense and stay at range like everyone else was suggesting, you’ll do fine as long as you learn to dodge and stay out of trouble. There is nothing false about my statement, you can make a tanky elementalist and shrug off hits like they are nothing, you just need to spec for it, and that includes using the correct attunements.

kilopy.2173:

What you said is patently false.

If you want to use daggers as an elementalist, you are forced into melee range. And, I have 10 points into Earth spec, and still get one shot. I refuse to use a certain attunement because that is the only viable way to make an elementalist not outclassed by every other class in the game. That is not balanced.

Being in melee range isn’t a bad thing… have you seen how quickly the whip (1 under air) takes down most foes? You hit the group with Updraft, first…blowing them away, evading, and interrupting their lead attacks with one button. You tag Ride the Lightning to bring you rapidly back into melee range, dealing a nice package of damage when you intercept them. Hit yourself with Shocking Aura to stun your enemies as they recover from the first two and renew their attack. Nail them with Lightning Touch to induce weakness and then beat them to death with your Whip.

But if you have not spec’d into Power and Toughness… you probably are going to get one-shotted. Again – this isn’t like the ele class in other games. It’s not designed for you to stand at a distance and blow stuff up while someone else heals you and someone else tanks the mob to keep them off your back.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a GOOD player or a HARDCORE player and I cower in fear at the idea of PvP… but I reject the idea that I lack the damage and durability of other classes in PvE – not when it’s clear that I’m taking down the mobs I encounter… not when I’m able to solo veterans that are beating the hell out of everyone else.

Can people pls stop talking about regular mobs?
Every class can take that ok? with or without toughness

‘Kite’ means to run away from an enemy so that you are out of melee range or are outside of spell casting range.

I only have an elementalist at lv 18, but it take a lot to kill a single mob, i played it with a staff (the 2H one) and it’s just good for support or pve (not even that much, IMHO), in pvp, with the fire attunement the time i cast lava font and the player already maimed me.. probably I’m a noob but the staff is pretty crappy for what i think..

Probably I’m not just suited for the elementalist.

Sry for my bad english

Regardless of your build, elementalist is squishy. Dodging and knowing when to switch attunements is key, along with traiting yourself accordingly.

For example, a lvl 25 scepter/dagger build with 10 in air, 5 in water makes you run much faster while staying in air, great for quick entries and exits in and from the battlefield, and gives you a window of opportunity to use your healing skill if the need arises. And dagger has Ride The Lightning which is both a quick assault that leads into an area attack in fire or earth attunement, and an emergency escape. Likewise, if you cannot switch to air attunement because of cooldown, you have regeneration in water attunement, perfect after a switch from earth attunement which inflicts bleeding. I’ve been going with this build for some time now and plan on traiting mostly in air and focusing on mobility, and it works well.

Staff is great for support and when you’re in the back row. For everything else, choose one of the other combinations.

Why don’t you guys rely on your condition damage, like burn/bleed? I have my attunement 20 fire and 20 earth, planning to max fire and earth. With fire attunement I think it’s good using duo daggers with it. Use fire skills to get mobs half down to hp and let burn do the rest of the work. But with this style, you’re squishy if you’re arggo. But you can try scepter and focus while in earth. I find this a really effective combo especially if you are going to solo. And as for pvp, don’t go duo daggers in a huge group in WvW, you’re just going to get shot down. Use staff/scepter and focus because they have more CC skills to help you survive.

I play one, it’s certainly not easy, but it’s not horrible if you use your CC as others have suggested and keep moving. Even a medium sized circle-strafe-almost-kiting as you fight can help keep things away. I mostly play water with a staff, though have been playing with fire a bit lately.

I’m also getting better and starting fire, moving to water into the fight, and sometimes cycling them again if it’s a longer fight. There’s a skill we have that can put a nice DOT on them, which is especially good if running in a state where you don’t have a DOT (like water). It has a passive with it, I’m not in the game, don’t remember it. Gold coin with some red trim? There’s a gold coin with blue trim that is active/passive that has a chill that I like to use with water. If I need a little extra time to drop my bigger (button 4) CC move down on a single target, I’ll use the active on that. Then I can usually get a few Ice Bombs off on them before I have to start running.

And don’t forget to dodge, even when circle strafing to not only avoid their moves, but increase your distance a bit. I happen to like to go counter clockwise, so ‘double-d’ is my friend.