Guild Wars 2

Practice in dodging, it helps when you use your first ongoing skill and circle around your target. You can easily evade his big attacks and you keep your distance.

ITT: Eles think enemies not dying in 2 seconds is a problem.

Haven’t had a chance to go over all the ele talents but I plan on getting some toughness and vitality and staying alive. That may be at the cost of everthing dying when I look at it but hey, you aren’t level 5 forever.

I’m a lvl 73 support ele atm, and yea ele can be a bit squisy and idd the damage might be a bit low at some points. But really a support ele with a staff is just really strong. If you build it right you are able to do tons of healing, dispel tons of conditions, provide lots of combofields, provide your party with some nice boons and last but not least did you see glyph of renewal? That is in my oppion one of the best support spells in the game.

When i’m soloing i can tank up to about 5 mobs without kiting them just eating their damage while staying alive, it takes some time to kill them but i will. So tbh i just think it’s a matter how your are playing ele. Only thing is i don’t know how ele is balanced in pvp, i did some wvw but it did not give my a proper sight on how the balace for ele in pvp is. However stuff like meteor show, healing rain and other big aoe’s do feel quite good to use on those large goups in wvw.

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 isn’t unique to GW2. It’s a basic MMO term. “To lure a mob or player around while attacking or allowing allies to attack. A player usually draws aggro by casting a mobility reduction spell on the target. The monster tries to follow the target but cannot catch up, leaving it open to attacks or the effects of DoT (damage over time) spells.”

Kitten is just this forum’s language filter kicking in. (I wonder if I can turn it off. I’m a big girl. I can see naughty words without getting an attack of the vapours).

The elementalist is pretty challenging to play in this game, because of its four attunements. In big fights, I recommend using the staff and staying at range. If it’s a boss fight, attune to water and use your healing spells to keep the melee guys in the fight. Only switch to fire and earth if things are going well and they don’t need the healing. (And be careful with air attunement. Your #1 attack can aggro enemies you didn’t intend to aggro).

If you’re getting attacked, circle strafe, dodge, run toward other people, throw down an elemental pet. You can’t stand still in most fights. Time your dodge for an impending attack, and you’ll completely evade. Make sure your utility skills complement the attack skills you use most often.

Be careful with your pulls. You’re a squishy. You can’t take a beating from a bunch of enemies.

Welcome to the world of clothies /casters. Either back up and start kiting from a distance or find a guardian or ranger to run with. My wife is an Ele and we duo with my Ranger…makes a great pair with the rangers “healing spring” to share…I keep an eye on her health bar also.

But she can solo with the best of them also. Maintain your distance and keep moving when fighting…can’t tell you how many times I see new eles run up close to the mob or boss and just stop to start casting

Raf

Changing attunements is important. Here’s how you know… if you look at your bar and you think “wow I wish ability X was ready already”, you prolly should have switched attunements.

Unlike other MMO’s you should really be watching the mob very closely. Watch what they do. See the animation of them throwing their arms back? That may mean they are about to throw something at you… be ready to dodge. Dodge is the biggest asset we get. What’s more, some attunement/weapon combos afford us an additional dodge (such as Burning Retreat). Great for those emergencies.

With all of that being said, I agree that ele’s need to have a slight damage bonus. Being as squishy as we are should have the bonus of being all powerful in the field of damage.

My main is an Ele and I think it’s one of those classes that can be incredibly frustrating if approached wrong. The attunements switching isn’t there as a gimmick or cool addition, it’s a necessity.
I’m a fan of being a support character so I put my points equally into water and fire with leftovers going into air – so far it’s been working nicely, giving me a decent amount of hitpoints and a powerful punch as well.
Make sure you start off as far from the enemy as possible. It’s usually start up with heavy hitting damage, so fire attunement. If the enemy is getting too close, use some escape skills like burning retreat or windborne speed. Gust works well too, pushing the enemy back, but keep in mind it’s a single target spell. The Ele also has plenty of slowing down spells such as unsteady ground, static field or frozen ground. If you see an enemy doing a massive, powerful attack, pop a blind on them to have them miss. Remember to use heals too, water attunement is really powerful in keeping you alive.

Additionally, remember to be aware of your surroundings – there’s nothing more annoying than dodge rolling out of one enemy’s way into a group of 5 more

Eleys are what I like to call glass cannons. They deal a lot of damage but can not take it. Or maybe they can.

I found putting 10pts in earth and slotting defensive traits made a huge difference in my survivability.

Also, try using sceptor/dagger and use it in melee range. I’m able to burst down groups of mobs, 3-4 at least with just a fire rotation. I pull them in range with the #1 skill, cast ring of fire and hit them with #3 and #2, this will kill trash mobs. Veterans, hit them with a fire grab, should have 6 stacks of might, 9 if you used the arcane aoe as well. With this rotation fire grab crits harder at 40 than my 50 thief’s backstab. Switch to earth, knock em down and I like to use #5 and bleed them a bit with the number 1 ability and kite and heal up.

I have had great success doing this and it definitely got easier after traiting in earth. I also wear a mix of power/vit and power/prec gear. I’m sure there may be better ways but this works so well for me I haven’t really explored anything else. For leveling it rocks, trash dies nearly instantly and veterans are easy.

For bosses I just use the staff, I’ve tried the melee range caster with them but it’s just aggravating with how much you have to dodge and run away or die.

To further FatManski’s point about surroundings… if you are fighting something ranged and are losing… dodge or quickly move behind another object (such as a tree or rock or wall)… this will force your target to move to fight you giving you some needed time to heal or whatever.

And since everyone else is doing it… I’ve been placing points in Air, Fire and Arcane. At level 55, I am getting close to having to pick one to really specialize in. Be sure to read the special selectable glyph things in the trait tree. They are very interesting. When something references an “Arcane” skill for example, you can see what those are by hovering over the skill and seeing the word “Arcane” in yellow before the description. This word can be “cantrip”, “glyph”, etc… Those keywords are important to understand. Also, in large group fights where lots of mobs are coming, nothing seems to beat a staff. Normal PvE in dungeons and such is a sceptor and focus/dagger combo. Normal outdoor roaming is usually double dagger.

Be sure to understand every ability you have. For example, one of my favorites is the dagger ice primary attack. Its a boomerang that flies out and comes back as long as it doesn’t hit any rocks/trees or anything. It does damage to every target it strikes as it goes out and comes back… it is not as damaging as some other abilities but every time the boomerang hits a target it also adds a vulnerability counter. So angle is very important when attuned ice with a dagger. Also, your fire breath and dragon claw abilities in dagger hits everything in front of you.

We may be made of glass but we’re sharp and jagged.

I main Ele, and am lvl 51. I also die very fast… if I’m hit. I play the glass cannon build and I can kill enemies very fast with decent gear and a staff. You just have to practice dodging and utilizing all of your (VAST) skills to keep enemies away from you. With a staff you can slow with water, stun and knockback with air, and cripple (and possibly immobilize… my brain kinda just died so I don’t remember) in earth. If you are still having problems there is no shame in working in a bit of toughness and sacrificing some damage. I run 20 fire, 10 air, and 10 water (for lovely damange buff when at 90+% health) (extras going inito air). This game is so amazing because every class can be played with so many different builds. I have tried out powerful condition builds that have much less burst but a lot of good, prolonged, dps AND a lot of toughness.

I am always wondering, though, do most people do a lot of attunement dancing on normal mobs? Or is this just a discussion of elites and champions? When I fight normal mobs (unless in some situation gone awry or the number of enemies demands it) I just stick to fire. I will, of course, switch a lot during champion or harder fights to lay down combo fields and interrupt attacks when applicable.

LightningLockey.5938:

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.

Perhapes the class you choose is fine. Consider you are just not good at it. Also some bosses can 1-2 any class. Just roll a new char with more armor and maybe you will live a little longer.

Kotor.5129:

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.

I agree, I see rangers soloing things 5 levels higher without a 2nd thought while I struggle to kill things the same level as me.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I main Ele, and am lvl 51. I also die very fast… if I’m hit. I play the glass cannon build and I can kill enemies very fast with decent gear and a staff. You just have to practice dodging and utilizing all of your (VAST) skills to keep enemies away from you. With a staff you can slow with water, stun and knockback with air, and cripple (and possibly immobilize… my brain kinda just died so I don’t remember) in earth. If you are still having problems there is no shame in working in a bit of toughness and sacrificing some damage. I run 20 fire, 10 air, and 10 water (for lovely damange buff when at 90+% health) (extras going inito air). This game is so amazing because every class can be played with so many different builds. I have tried out powerful condition builds that have much less burst but a lot of good, prolonged, dps AND a lot of toughness.

I am always wondering, though, do most people do a lot of attunement dancing on normal mobs? Or is this just a discussion of elites and champions? When I fight normal mobs (unless in some situation gone awry or the number of enemies demands it) I just stick to fire. I will, of course, switch a lot during champion or harder fights to lay down combo fields and interrupt attacks when applicable.

Almost always switching just to put out that extra damage/heal/speed boost/ damage boost that each attunement gives you…. this makes the class a head ache after awhile, but gives you a slight advantage IMO

If you are dieing too much, you aren’t playing your class well. I’m a power-focused Elementalist and I haven’t had issues with survivibility. If you are utilitizing your different elements during combat, you can keep yourself alive while maintaining heavy damage to the enemy.
I’ve quick swapped to each element to fire off my best attacks during some nasty fights. Don’t sit on one element and wait on cooldowns if you can move to another element.

its very apparent u might be new to the MMO world, references and terminology, I suggest you find a helpful guild that may guide you through some of the basics. It can be a little overwhelming at first but like everything practice makes perfect.

Elementalist simply needs to do more damage or to have better control if it is to remain so squishy. The current control options last for a few seconds and frankly arent worth casting in the majority of cases.

Hi LL.

I would have to disagree with a lot of your post, my ele does a lot of damage and I am able to solo well. As for true boss fights you must dodge, you are not a tank even if using dagger/dagger you wont take more than a hit or two. Then back out and go back in.

I saw your comment about traits. You did buy a trait book from a trainer didn’t you?? You cannot use traits until you do this.

The ele is a lot of fun and very versatile, stick with it- it will get better!

Fun to play not very rewarding. Fun to play also makes other professions seem boring. I only use Staff b/c being at range is your friend. Kiting I do well and have learned from playing casters in DAOC, WOW, D3 and so on. The mob combat range for Kiting is a PAIN in this game. Have to learn to Kite in a circle rather then a line.
I normaly use Fire then Earth to Snare/Dot (shield if ranged), then Air to finish them off (or Water if I want to Heal / stop running around). Not very rewarding when you witness other professions go pew pew mob dead with way less effort.

I would have to agree with others that have played the Ele about death. GW2 Ele death toll in 1 week is greater then any other game I have played. Aasked my Ranger friend if he died often and he said “Nope, my pets helps alot”.

Makes me regret picking this Profession. However I will not play anything else and nothing is ever static in MMOs anyway. They may get buffed or may not.

I disagree that they need their damage upped because of warriors, right now warriors are to powerful imo due to having the best of both worlds DPS/Mitigation. Elementalists DPS is better then average and thus they are squishy which is the way it should be. It should always be high DPS/low survivability, Average DPS/Average Survivability, Low DPS/High Survivability. Utility Specs should follow the same basis with Utility/DPS/Mitigation.

You really can’t base balance on Warriors atm because lets be honest … Warriors current state is rediculous.

Somebody asked what kiting was and I’ve yet to see a really definitive description. It is just as it sounds, it is as if you are pulling the mob along like a kite, staying just out of reach and attacking on the move the entire time.

The other thing I’d like to add to the already good advice here is that you must keep moving. Always. The beauty of this game is its movement. After playing WOW (and multiple other MMOs) for so many years, and being tied to one spot in order to cast, I feel an enormous sense of freedom in this game. I’m kiting well for the first time in my gaming life and it’s so much FUN.

With regards to boss fights, my opening strategy is usually the following:

1. Attune to air with scepter in main hand and focus in off-hand.
2. Use Utility Arcane Power for 5 hits of critical damage.
3. Use Lightning Strike with a series of Arc Lightning.
4. Summon a Wurm for distraction and additional damage.
5. Use Gale to knock the Boss down.

I also have Mist Form equipped in order to get to safe distance if I take damage. I also put trait points into Water so that you can attune to water to regenerate health. You can also use Signet of Restoration to gain health with every magic cast. After the initial salvo, I usually switch to Fire or Earth, cycle through the spells of those, then go back to Air. Gale + Wurm + Arcane Power + Lightning Strike is a lethal combo.

I read most of the comments and I’m glad to came here in time ….
I had simmilar problem and I have simple solution

Ignore Elementalist, start a Warrior or Necromancer

It’s sad but it’s true ^^
ANet carefully got rid of few professions , You never wondered why Elementalist has no Profession skills (F1-F4 are attunments, if we had 10 sets of weapon like the rest of you THEN It would have been a Profession skill and a speciality, this way with 4 weapons…its nothing XD)

Elementalist will be buffed sooner or later, ignore him for now, make 1 of those 2 and play OP ^^

GoodLuck !!!

Didn’t read the thread past the first post but there’s nothing wrong with Ele except that it takes more skill to play than one of the derp classes like a warrior where you just go greatsword and hit 5 then 2 and everything near you dies.

Ele are only squishy if you don’t use active skills. If you just sit there getting hit then yes of course you are going to die fast. Ele survivability is all active, not passive.

In addition to the stuff every class gets – dodging and just getting out of the way by kiting – ele have all sorts of survivability skills. I am willing to bet your problem is that you have taken only DPS skills and then you wonder why you die fast.

Take arcane shield or mist form. Make use of your blinds, stuns and knockbacks and knockdowns. Take an elemental summoning skill and use the earth elemental to tank. Put points into water and/or earth. Use earth armor.

If you play like a glass cannon you will die a lot. But ele still do very good damage even when not specced and skilled for pure damage. Learn to use your survivability skills and talents and you’ll do just fine.

sorry, but i am Fire/Earth traited, just hit 60, with 5 points in water just for the soothing mist ability. my armor is all up to date, i have as much armor (defense from items + toughness) as most heavy armor wearers (i’m at almost 1300 right now), and i have plenty of bonus to vitality (just over 7200 life). i am STILL getting 2-3 shotted. personal storylines are no longer soloable where i am at. most mobs i cannot fight more than one or two at a time, which is a bit of a pain because kiting always picks up one or two recently spawned. i dodge CONSTANTLY, using both kite and circle-strafe. my utilities are typically arcane shield, mist form, and signet of fire, and i use a staff. so no, it’s not just “learn to evade” or “trait defensively”. coupled with this game’s broken leashing (thats when you kite them a little bit, then they turn invulnerable and run back to where they were. WITHOUT dropping agro), solo anything is not viable. the respawn rates are insanely high, even when the server isn’t very populated. this is a great game, and very well done, but arena.net needs to understand that there is more difficulties than WoW’s “a monkey could ace this” and this one’s “you’ve got a better chance at surviving call of cthulu”. as for dungeons….there being absolutely NO agro control simply means that if you don’t have the power to foresee when a mob is going to choose to attack you, you are going to die. and since the enemies in dungeons love to sync attacks onto a single target, expect armor repairs. thank the gods they’re not expensive.

I think elementalist is fine in PvP and DE, that they serve well in some aspects but not others. But when come to soloing in PvE, which would be more frequent when the starting rush is over, there is a basic class-design problem.

Our direct damage is weak and most of our damages come from GTAoE based DoTs, which requires your target to stay inside that f**king area. Dodge and tell that mob to leave that f**king area to chase you? That is the last thing you want to do.

You only have 2 choices. Let the mob hit you so she stay in that area, or move around in circle busily like hell to keep her in that area without yourself getting hit. Both are simply tiring, tedious, nightmares for solo PvE. I would never wanna kill a mob at solo unless absolutely necessary.

Burning Retreat is a solution for only specific cases. You don’t always have space to leap back and many mobs are smart to avoid it, then it does not work well with multiple mobs. Being obliged to switching between attunement busily for solo PvE against every single mob is also out of question. Static Field are usually useless because of its casting time and effects only on the instant it hits, very hard to hit on moving mobs, then the cool down between attument switching would force you to WAIT after each fight. The whole mechanism for Elementalist has a lot of design glitch. Unlike a priest or mage in WoW, that you can DD or DoT killing a mob before they hit on your vulnerable clothing armors, Elementalist in this game is a poor PvE solo class. It definitely won’t work for noobs unless they stick 100% to group DE/PvP. We need a permanent tanking pet or better Direct Damage to make it right.

This is not only my opinions. Almost everyone I know, including many non-elementalist classes agree with this. Good skillful elementalists still shine in every contents, but casual elementalists are just …. you know.

Ele needs a rebalancing period! I don’t want to hear “meh l2p”. Our damage is terribad, and we need to put in 5X more effort just to achieve the same results as most classes. Our survival is not bad, but I need to stay alive far too long to kill a fool in PvP. Damage is unacceptable.

And for the love of god nerf warriors and guardians! Really?! 25K crits in heavy armor?! and “Ohh I’m a guardian, let me just hide behind this pillar and… DING ohh full health? thank you!”

Err, i’ve seen very very good Eles in PvP.
The kind that are impossible to kill and hit like a truck. And I’m no slouch at pvp myself.

And have you checked youtube for videos of good eles? I’m sure they exist, people love to brag.

Level 78 elementalist, and yes, it’s a pretty useless class at present.

I’ve considered switching professions before so I played most of them up to level 20 – and it’s here where you can really see how unbalanced things are.

And no people… stop saying the elementalist has good damage – because if that’s your “elementalists are fine excuse” then you haven’t played other classes.
Way… way too squishy, for the low damage output, – and this is comparing it to the effectiveness of other classes not the usual idiocy of “I do fine with it so it is fine!”

I have to agree that Elementalists are probably the weakest of all classes in pvp. The damage output is not even remotely close to where it should be. Mind you I’m using a full glass cannon build (high crit chance and crit damage) and vs say a good Guardian my highest crit shot is about 800-1k dmg. Keep in mind I said a good Guardian.

Versus Thieves I can hit about 1800-2000 dmg (arcane blast / thunderbolt). This is just per individual high end attack.

I’m by no means a bad player, I can cycle through Lightning, Fire, and Earth elements, land all of my shots (not an easy thing to do) and leave a warrior with half health, and forget about guardians, they just heal back to full with the push of a button. However, I can hop on my Ranger or Thief, press 3 buttons and do more damage, have a lot more survivability, and to top it all off, it’s no where near as difficult as playing an Elementalist is.

Oh and if I miss, the warrior can one-shot me.

You think eles are bad in pve, wait until you try pvp/wvw: both your damage and your health bar are insignificant.

Urillusion.2378:

Ele needs a rebalancing period! I don’t want to hear “meh l2p”. Our damage is terribad, and we need to put in 5X more effort just to achieve the same results as most classes. Our survival is not bad, but I need to stay alive far too long to kill a fool in PvP. Damage is unacceptable.

And for the love of god nerf warriors and guardians! Really?! 25K crits in heavy armor?! and “Ohh I’m a guardian, let me just hide behind this pillar and… DING ohh full health? thank you!”

*
With a rogue i just press 2 butons, and i kill any ppl with no prob. Is not balanced at all.

i’m level 60 as an asura elementalist. for bosses, it makes sense that they will be owned in a couple hits. you shouldn’t be standing in melee range of a boss. i suggest if you want to survive soloing tough enemies, use a good staff. move around a lot. condition damage, condition damage, condition damage. control spells to keep them in place and at a distance. switch up your attunements a lot. you have to be quick and focus a lot on the damage-over-time. i used a d/d ele at first for a while and it’s good but staff is so much better for soloing. i can also solo 5 levels higher than me.

i’ve been thinking of going into PvP for a while but i’ve never done much before. in any mmo. as for WvW i can put a lot of hurt on enemies in big groups.

Yo, lvl 68 Ele here. I do agree we are quite paper for a class, but we’re more of the magic dealers for elements, be it slow, burn, bleed and etc..

So far i’m non-pvp player, so I’m just more on exploring.

I suggest using daggers for solo mobs (like storyline) and staff for bosses.

Fire traits does huge damages as we deal 10% more damage + we deal more if monsters have less than 25% health left.

As much as I hate the fact that we can’t change weapons, but remember, we have all the attunements. Probably we just spam everything from fire to earth, we dish out pretty decent damages. Just that, it’s not easy if the you’re the only target, with a huge mob.

Happened to me recently, I was completed the level 60 story quest. Practically, i was fighting naked because I had to solo 2 veteran krait fighters and their poison was really terrible(died and died and equipments went from yellow to red) I thought that was the end of it, turns out another Boss fight.

x_X spent quite a while at it (i’m noob maybe) but well, probably maybe we need something to ‘decoy’ ourselves? I like the hounds, helps to distract while you cast.

Here’s a thread to read about our class:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Those-having-trouble-with-Elementalist

P.S. One fun way i agree with the above peeps we can fight lvl higher mobs is that we can juz AOE as long as the monster’s focus is not on us. Pretty nice way of dishing out damages.

& remember to RUN!!!

Hail Ele!!

Simple answer.. if you think warriors are so op, then change.. if you like the ele playstyle, then suck it up and try to improve your skill (also heard that with the right states water attunement can be very strong).
Think a lot of players have to handle their professions weakness, but I find the game fair enough… maybe not 1v1, but hey it is a multiplayer game, and as long I got my Mesmer friend I feel untouchable.

no class can easily tanks things in this game. i’m a lvl 80 guardian with maxed toughness and vitality traits, a lvl 80 exotic 2 hander with vitality and a full lvl 80 exotic knight set (toughness).

that gives me about 3200 defense and 16,5k hp. i can now deal with mobs rather easily. i still take some 800-1500 hits but i can at least kill 2-3 mobs at once before they manage to kill me.
if you want to compare the damage you take to my max defense spec guardian, i take 600 dmg from a risen chicken exploding.

bosses are different, they still hit me for 8000-9000 dmg with some of their skills so no matter what i do i can’t stay in melee range with a boss and just tank it, even if i used all my heals it wouldn’t work.

AngelofAwe.4972:

no class can easily tanks things in this game. i’m a lvl 80 guardian with maxed toughness and vitality traits, a lvl 80 exotic 2 hander with vitality and a full lvl 80 exotic knight set (toughness).

that gives me about 3200 defense and 16,5k hp. i can now deal with mobs rather easily. i still take some 800-1500 hits but i can at least kill 2-3 mobs at once before they manage to kill me.
if you want to compare the damage you take to my max defense spec guardian, i take 600 dmg from a risen chicken exploding.

bosses are different, they still hit me for 8000-9000 dmg with some of their skills so no matter what i do i can’t stay in melee range with a boss and just tank it, even if i used all my heals it wouldn’t work.

With max vitality trait and vitality gear you should have far and away more HP than that…what are you talking about?

Anyway. OP, If you don’t have access to your traits you’re pretty much out of luck. They’re a huge part of your character, and you are going to be severely handicapped without them no matter what class you play or how well you play.

If you haven’t already checked, as already suggested, find a Trainer. The starting areas have them, so do WvW entrance areas. They have a green book icon on thier heads and on the map. Buy yourself a manual, and open your inventory and use it. The go into the Hero panel, (H) key by default, click on the skills/traits tab, and select traits. Use the plus buttons to assign traits to your preference, and select your new abilities you get for every 10 points invested in a line.

At your level, you’re missing 20 points. That’s roughly 200 points in 2 stats you’re missing (Or 100 in four, etc)… good luck replacing that with just gear. That alone is huge lose… but also missing the effects of the bonus abilities you gain for traits is crushing. This is your problem. Not your class.

Ignore these other random rants about elementalist this, elementalist that. “Oh, poor me, I like guardian skills better but am going to keep playing this class I don’t like, just to spite myself. Oh I’m a martyr, aren’t I cool” Bah. Play what you enjoy, easy concept. You can play any of them…. But in your case Lightning Lock… you just needs you some traits and you’ll be fine me thinks.

I’m a lvl 80 ele and run scepter/dagger. I can run around Orr (high lvl zone packed full of mobs) with little problem solo. My build is 30/20/20 fire, water, arcane…the trick is, at least for scepter/dagger build, make sure you are using your combos. Run into a group of mobs drop your tooth, then fire circle, then arcane wave, then phoenix, the fire grab…everything in that circle should be dead or almost dead by now.

If you still need to kill thing, switch to lightening and use the 5 skill (forget what it is called) to knock them back then you can switch to water to heal up a bit…then earth. When you hit earth knock then down with 4, then blind with 3 then channel 5….need to knock down first then blind to make sure you get 5 off.

If things are still up hit water again, then back to fire and repeat…also make good use of the blind from lightening as well. This is just kinda a base example obviously depending on the situation it will require some adjustment but this has seen much success for me.

I personally choose water over earth for condition removal on switch to water and I prefer sustain over reduced dmg…and extra healing power is nice for your heal per cast signet.

Ravnodaus.5130:

AngelofAwe.4972:

no class can easily tanks things in this game. i’m a lvl 80 guardian with maxed toughness and vitality traits, a lvl 80 exotic 2 hander with vitality and a full lvl 80 exotic knight set (toughness).

that gives me about 3200 defense and 16,5k hp. i can now deal with mobs rather easily. i still take some 800-1500 hits but i can at least kill 2-3 mobs at once before they manage to kill me.
if you want to compare the damage you take to my max defense spec guardian, i take 600 dmg from a risen chicken exploding.

bosses are different, they still hit me for 8000-9000 dmg with some of their skills so no matter what i do i can’t stay in melee range with a boss and just tank it, even if i used all my heals it wouldn’t work.

With max vitality trait and vitality gear you should have far and away more HP than that…what are you talking about?

Anyway. OP, If you don’t have access to your traits you’re pretty much out of luck. They’re a huge part of your character, and you are going to be severely handicapped without them no matter what class you play or how well you play.

If you haven’t already checked, as already suggested, find a Trainer. The starting areas have them, so do WvW entrance areas. They have a green book icon on thier heads and on the map. Buy yourself a manual, and open your inventory and use it. The go into the Hero panel, (H) key by default, click on the skills/traits tab, and select traits. Use the plus buttons to assign traits to your preference, and select your new abilities you get for every 10 points invested in a line.

At your level, you’re missing 20 points. That’s roughly 200 points in 2 stats you’re missing (Or 100 in four, etc)… good luck replacing that with just gear. That alone is huge lose… but also missing the effects of the bonus abilities you gain for traits is crushing. This is your problem. Not your class.

Ignore these other random rants about elementalist this, elementalist that. “Oh, poor me, I like guardian skills better but am going to keep playing this class I don’t like, just to spite myself. Oh I’m a martyr, aren’t I cool” Bah. Play what you enjoy, easy concept. You can play any of them…. But in your case Lightning Lock… you just needs you some traits and you’ll be fine me thinks.

it’s toughness gear + some vitality. both traits maxed. but guardians actually have pretty low hp, lower than warriors.

I’ve been doing decent enough in pvp with double daggers. When I 1v1 I never felt that I was outmatched, if I died I felt I was out of position or made a dumb mistake (I hate that treb in spvp). I think staff feels too slow for my taste to use in pvp and since you have to target the aoes on the ground, the opponent can easily escape since movement in this game is pretty fast with rolls and skills. Try to take arcane shield. It really works wonders and you don’t need to stop to do a casting animation so you can keep on right attacking without stopping for it and if you see someone charge up for an attack, just use it and have them waste a shot. For traits I put 20 points in earth for the toughness and took the earth armor below 50%, because getting a free one seems to do well, even just for the protection (33% damage reduction is huge). Fire attunement is really great damage and I do feel like I outdamage other people when I see how much I take out of their life bar.

I would say switching mostly between fire and lightning attunement is the way to go (I’m trying to throw in water skills every now, since the aura, frost blast come out relatively fast). The ele has a lot of cc they can throw out, so just get used to swapping attunements (and it helps to get that fury bonus on swap). I think earth armor is pretty good in pvp. I honestly don’t like the elite skills too much though.

I’m still only a low level (26) ele, playing mainly with DxD or ST as main wep, my gear is constantly up to par with my level.
Imho, it isn’t too squishy, switch attunements and kite the hell out of mobs, incl. veteran mobs. But keep your hands off of ranged vets / champs, you don’t stand a chance :P
However, I wouldn’t mind doing just a little bit more of damage. If I watch warriors etc of my level, blast through mobs, I can’t help but feel a little bit left behind..

There’s only 1 thing I’m missing:
- Change Weapon Button, only to be use OOC, obviously!
I find myself wanting to switch between DxD & ST quite often, based on the fight and constantly having to open ‘H’ and dragging the weapons into the correct slot, is annoying.

grtz,

Antra

I’ve been going through the whole thread, and here’s my verdict. I added in notes for the devs at some points, so they know which quests or area I may be referring to, and try to keep them spoiler free.

Skill is a factor, but that factor becomes negligible in Dungeons, certain story quests and 70+ areas.

I have been able to properly solo the game, except for those points. Dungeons encounter design is absolutely horrible – the trashmobs are (by far) harder than the bosses. I was in the level 78 Dungeon two days ago and the first room with trashmobs took us longer than all bosses taken together, which I could mostly faceroll through. There were mobs that one-shotted me. Especially gun-based mobs killed me 100% of the time if they took aim, since evasive manoeuvres can only deflect parts of their barrages, and some of their attacks even one-shotted me. The best designed dungeon so far was Caudecus’ Mansion.

Story Quests become pretty horrible after level 40 and have obviously not been through that many QA sessions. Some story quests I could just avoid the enemies for the most part (Lions Arch, Vigil, Invasion), others I had to do in groups (hint: lv48, skritt, queen - lv71, tonn, wife - lv??, lions arch, underwater), and some were just outright bugged (the one in the sewers - enemies just bugged behind walls). There are situations where you can’t help but have 3 enemies attack you, and for any Ele, that’s just deadly.

And then, there are Level 70+ Areas. These are, frankly, simply not ready at all. Enemies aggro over ridiculous distances. It’s almost impossible in many areas to avoid fighting more than one enemy. The majority seems to have a pullback ability, during which the player usually crosses the aggro range of at least one more enemy. Positioning is horrible. Kharma quests are not implemented. With my level 80 char in a 75 area, I need to fight every normal enemy as if it’s a veteran enemy and have to wait after each fight to have my abilities available again. The only other class that, in this area, at least remotely has similar problems are Mesmers, and they have their mirror image.

My final verdict:
Most of the game, the Elementalist is easily soloable.

The rest of the game simply shouldn’t have been released in this state and makes me wonder what happened to the “We will not release the game before it’s ready” statement. It’s more of a balancing and encounter design issue than a class problem, really.

I’ve tried everything suggested and my character is just totally destroyed. I guess when I run out of gold and can no longer repair armor and teleport out of death I’ll give up on the elementalist.

I’m starting to regret getting this game.

Guys, he answered his own question.

LightningLockey.5938:

Currently I’m level 30 and my character is just plain weak.

LightningLockey.5938:

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

This isn’t a hard mystery to solve. Give him all the pointers you want, it’s not technique per-se he lacks. His character is fundamentally broken from a statistics point of view.

LightningLockey.5938:

I’ve tried everything suggested and my character is just totally destroyed. I guess when I run out of gold and can no longer repair armor and teleport out of death I’ll give up on the elementalist.

I’m starting to regret getting this game.

Try a different character. At least until they can fix your issue with traits!

The traits issue was lack of a tutorial, someone told me in-game that I had to see an npc to have it unlocked. I’m upset that there was nothing pointing me in that direction. The traits help a little, but nothing really great.

I don’t think anyone who played more than one class will deny the ele need to be rebalanced. Currently(other than being fun to play) There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to play an elementalist in term of effectiveness. Other classes can do more damage while being tankier

No offense intended Fara, but statements like that are always a little short sighted. I’m not saying you are wrong, per se… just the way you worded your statement, you are essentially claiming to know what thousands of people are/will do.

I have played all of the proffesions, for example. I’ve played the elementalist with regularity, from BWE 1 onward. In solo play, they have some difficulties unique to the class, yes, but every class does. In group play, they are very, very useful. I don’t think they need to be rebalanced any more or less than any of the proffesions.

To focus on the actual issue at hand rather than a debate about this class: It seems like the poster is highly discouraged and confused by GW2’s play style and lack of direction. The fact that many thousands of people are playing this class successfully to high levels suggests that it is not a fundamentally broken class. Wizards are usually the most difficult class to master in any fantasy game (video or pnp), and this game is less forgiving than some other MMOs. At this point, the o.p. appears to be seeking sympathy rather than advice, which doesn’t really seem constructive. I would simply recommend trying a different class (as you have four other character slots, after all) to see if your issue is with the game or with the particular class. And read or view a tutorial about building that class as you roll it up. (Google will find lots of suggestions.)

Elementalists are not underpowered. They are the most difficult to play. If you haven’t played The first Guild Wars i suggest playing as a different class until you are familiar with the concepts guild wars uses. Guild Wars PvP is much more in depth than any other MMO I’ve seen.