Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for ways to make an ele more survivable. I only care about solo PvE play.

Currently, he has ascended carrion gear with fire-based runes and insignia.

He can take out most small (2-4) groups very quickly. However, against larger mobs or elite and higher enemies, he’s a lot harder to keep alive.

I’m willing to re-gear him, but I’m at a loss as to what to use. Viper’s would probably let him kill small mobs faster, but almost certainly he would die faster to more difficult mobs.

Ideas?

Are you deadset on using a condi ele?

You’ve got a couple pretty standard choices. Obviously full berserker is the most optimal, especially if you use staff. You can obliterate just about any sized group doing that, and if you’re not comfortable with your own skills you can just as easily use it at long range. Glass gear actually makes it easier to survive in PvE because you kill things so quickly. You’d probably find the same thing with viper’s gear.

Another fairly common option would be celestial gear, or some sort of mix n’ match that accomplishes a similar stat spread. Cele eles dominated PvP for years as one of the toughest tanks in the game, yet still do reasonable damage.

You might try full glass for open world and maybe cele for new living world or expacs and so on, where you’re not quite sure what to expect.

Thanks!

It’s more for HoT and some LS S3 mobs that I’m having trouble. I’m getting wasted in that last mission in Bitterfrost, for example. LONG before the boss; the first mobs are killing me.

I think I’ve got a celestial set somewhere. I’ll try that. I’m working on building a vipers build; that takes a bit longer.

I just start that and go read a book. The NPCs will clear it eventually … until they get the spiders then you need to nudge them along.

The svanir brutes(might be the wrong name) just have a ridiculous attack though. It’s pretty much a dodge or die if you are fighting close enough to be in range of all the projectiles from it but it has a very short tell. That one is more of a poor mob design than ‘ele needs more survivability’.

It seems that way to me, too. Both my ranger and tank necro also had trouble. But, the ele is by far the worst so far.

Thanks for the tip!

What build are you running, and what weapon set? Eles have a decent spread of defenses options across all weapons sets and their utility skills. Summon Elemental Elite and calling an Earth Elemental also makes for a great tank to distract mobs when your running glassy builds. The Elite skill is least significant on the majority of Ele builds, so it rarely interferes with anything else.

As for Brutes…. carry a reflect, and they practically kill themselves.

Daddicus.6128:

Currently, he has ascended carrion gear with fire-based runes and insignia.

I just started to play a level 80 ele recently and for me too going full damage gear-wise worked best. I play full berserk, but would I want to play a condi ele I would go full viper and would buy rampager’s as long as I work on my viper’s armor. I feel that every point I spend in vitality or toughness is a point lost in damage. Kill it before it kills you ;-). I decided on berserker because I couldn’t find enough condition damage skills on a staff ele to justify the expensive viper’s gear. But I may be wrong.

I also die a lot in larger mops but I feel that my solution to that problem is to use the appropriate skills to keep them in bay (or attack them) and use them FAST. Throw everything at them as soon as I approach the enemy. Have a good rotation and know it very well. To really, really know which skill does what. And to be FAST to avoid attacks.

Yes, summoning an elemental (elite skill) is something I do a lot too ;-).

I only play PVE btw.

aikatara.3462:

I also die a lot in larger mops but I feel that my solution to that problem is to use the appropriate skills to keep them in bay (or attack them) and use them FAST. Throw everything at them as soon as I approach the enemy. Have a good rotation and know it very well. To really, really know which skill does what. And to be FAST to avoid attacks.

A bad player in glass gear is tomorrow’s elite player. Any player in tanky gear is next year’s player in tanky gear…

Well, it appears that tanky gear does not work very well for me. I experienced that on other classes too. I discovered that the raid training area is a good place to pracise rotations. You can create a one-person-squad and go in and practise. Weirdly enough the other situation that made me learn my skills (not on ele though) was to solo an ascalon path (story mode). It took forever but I never thought that long and hard which skill to use in what situation before :-D.

I am not sure if Carrion gear is desirable for a PvE Ele, because you have to rely so much on burning as your main condi to damage.
If you switch to Viper completely, you will see better results (but it is expensive)

To make you less squishy, you either have to spec into traits, skills (both weapon, e.g. WH or F and utilities) or more defensive stats.

Celestial – Those will always help you as an Ele, but the noticeable effect will be small by only going for one or two pieces to switch out. A complete set will ward you against most “one shots” and allow you to gain extra seconds to heal & cleanse.

Soldier – The “balanced tanky” set, but that one will cause you to abandon you condi burns to a large extend. You will have to cope via Tuning Crystal food.

Knight’s or Cavalier – getting a high Toughness will make you an absolute aggro magnet in PvE (you have low health, low armour AND high Toughness), which trigger a lot of AI behaviour to attack you and follow you around. Although it sounds contradictory, this can actually help defend yourself: If you know you enemies, you exactly know what they will do, so you can use defensive skills, like reflects vs. ranged foes or lead enemies into your fire fields.

Gorani.7205:

Soldier – The “balanced tanky” set, but that one will cause you to abandon you condi burns to a large extend. You will have to cope via Tuning Crystal food.

The condi version of Soldier is Dire … so just use the right stat instead.

Khisanth.2948:

Gorani.7205:

Soldier – The “balanced tanky” set, but that one will cause you to abandon you condi burns to a large extend. You will have to cope via Tuning Crystal food.

The condi version of Soldier is Dire … so just use the right stat instead.

I have reasonable doubts a set without Power stats will be good, once you need to leave Fire attunement. You could use D/WH, Sigils of Smoldering and Bursting and try to stay in Fire, but once you swap out into something else you damage will drop significantly (and you have no Healing Power or Boon duration to recover). Ele needs a baseline of Power (IMHO) or some of its main attack skills hit like a wet noodle.

i run a viper ele as my main. If you have asc gear already, you can easily use the forge to make it viper, you just need the viper ori insig/inscrip, ecto, and anthology of heros. One thing i did was get some of the lw3 asc trinkets and chose trailblazers on a cpl of them, just for a bit of toughness. You just need to become comfortable with some of the mobility skills and keep dodging.

Gorani.7205:

Khisanth.2948:

Gorani.7205:

Soldier – The “balanced tanky” set, but that one will cause you to abandon you condi burns to a large extend. You will have to cope via Tuning Crystal food.

The condi version of Soldier is Dire … so just use the right stat instead.

I have reasonable doubts a set without Power stats will be good, once you need to leave Fire attunement. You could use D/WH, Sigils of Smoldering and Bursting and try to stay in Fire, but once you swap out into something else you damage will drop significantly (and you have no Healing Power or Boon duration to recover). Ele needs a baseline of Power (IMHO) or some of its main attack skills hit like a wet noodle.

Condi beats Power at least according to the benchmarks http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

That is for top end damage. When scaled down they shouldn’t be much different even in the worst case scenario.

I have also tested my elementalist with condi gear. Despite having the wrong runes and sigils(borrowed gear from my necro) the damage output was still comparable to the power gear with more appropriate runes and sigils. That was for general running around in HoT.

Thanks for all the tips!

Fluffball.8307:

aikatara.3462:

I also die a lot in larger mops but I feel that my solution to that problem is to use the appropriate skills to keep them in bay (or attack them) and use them FAST. Throw everything at them as soon as I approach the enemy. Have a good rotation and know it very well. To really, really know which skill does what. And to be FAST to avoid attacks.

A bad player in glass gear is tomorrow’s elite player. Any player in tanky gear is next year’s player in tanky gear…

So far, I’ve yet to meet a full glass ele that can solo effectively against even some of the easier HoT HP challenge champions. Usually what I get when I question such “elite” players is: Why would you solo that? Yet you’re answering questions for players who are asking about how to survive in SOLO PvE. If you don’t play solo or bother with soloing things, then why answer by talking down to players who wish to do exactly that and don’t care about your raids and other forms of organized group PvE?

I don’t want to assume you’re like the others, though. Why don’t we define what your priorities are so we can better determine what you mean when you say you “solo” in full glass? What do you solo? Can you solo something difficult? How about the mushroom emperor or mushroom queen in TD? Can you solo those in full glass? How about something a little easier like the inquisitor HP or the chak champion in the southern part of AB? I’m probably not “elite”, but I can solo those in celestial and definitely not in full glass. What about you?

I agree, Aliam: glass gear isn’t for me. I would change the quote to “a bad player in glass gear is tomorrows non-player”. I despise glass gear. It creates a ceiling to the character’s playability, which is not good for the player’s longevity.

However, I left the option open here because I wanted to hear what people had to say. I play a warrior with berserker’s gear* and a thief with assassin’s*. And, I’m building up some light armor as viper’s*, and trying out viper’s exotic gear right now. I don’t like any of them, but I’ve learned to run away from combat early when the mob is too tough.

Starred items* in the previous paragraph are ascended.

AliamRationem.5172:

I don’t want to assume you’re like the others, though. Why don’t we define what your priorities are so we can better determine what you mean when you say you “solo” in full glass? What do you solo? Can you solo something difficult? How about the mushroom emperor or mushroom queen in TD? Can you solo those in full glass? How about something a little easier like the inquisitor HP or the chak champion in the southern part of AB? I’m probably not “elite”, but I can solo those in celestial and definitely not in full glass. What about you?

Yes, I can solo just about anything in the game in full glass on any of the professions I’m halfway decent at, including the open world bosses like mushroom emperor, all the HoT HPs except 1 or 2, like the triple frog champ one. The game is intended and designed to be completed by making appropriate uses of dodges and utilities/traits, even weapon skills.

While I’m technically in several guilds, I play solo 99% of the time in WvW and PvE. If you can’t do that, then it’s worth attempting to get better by slowly switching out your tanky gear with glassier gear (if you want to improve, if you’re happy the way you play then you do you, it’s just a game.) In the mean time, stop being snarky to me.

Edit: Just a little anecdote, I once stumbled across a group of players attempting to kill Varre the Underhanded in Kessex Hills. They were dying over and over and over again because they were trying to just tank his outrageously high damage. It’s basically not possible to rez people at this fight, so I let the blob of them die and then easily soloed him because I understand how his attacks work. No amount of tankiness is going to make this fight easy (or even survivable, I’m not sure if you can take his hits in tanky armor or not?), but in full glass understanding the attacks, the fight is trivially easy.