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Posted by: Reciprocity.8021

Reciprocity.8021

I have a level 18 elementalist. I’m doing another starting area 1-15 and just flat getting owned on some of these quests… it feels like I’m missing something important.

Like just now had some level 8 quest to find a scout and escort him to safety. So while escorting him like 10 mobs spawned and I was not even remotely close to surviving it. I took maybe 2 mobs down. I have a heal which I spam as fast as the cooldown will let me.

This is why I left back at release but some coworkers have convinced me to come back and told me to do all the starter areas that it helps with an elementalist so that I what I am doing.

I don’t know if I’m spec’d wrong, have bunk gear or what but I’m getting owned on some of the more important quests.

I know its hard to offer help not seeing my gear and stuff, not sure if there is any kind of armory or what not for this game. I’m spec’d mostly fire (fire trait is at level

Not sure what the deal is.. have never have trouble with MMO’s and played nearly all end-game in EQ1/LOTRO/WOW.. so I’m not some noob that can’t play video games.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Elementalists need to be both mobile and to some degree, have defenses. Things like control and also conditions like blinding are your friend.

If something’s blinded, it’s not going to do that much damage.

In this game, moving and dodging is a big part of your success. Having points in vitality/toughness can help too, particularly while you’re learning.

Changing attunements is important too and don’t forget earth. It can help.

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Posted by: Rouven.7409

Rouven.7409

Some dynamic events are harder then others and some are even labeled to be group events. Other than that learn to disengage – tactical retreat – and strike again (edit: I do some events like that with a bunch of mobs, not always possible, some dynamic events can fail). Movement, dodging is the main key. Also perhaps try some other weapons, sometimes it just clicks and from then on it goes easier.

“Whose Kitten is this?” – “It’s a Charr baby.”
“Whose Charr is this?”- “Ted’s.”
“Who’s Ted?”- “Ted’s dead, baby. Ted’s dead.”

(edited by Rouven.7409)

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Posted by: Apolyon.6937

Apolyon.6937

Try this, do not use fire attunement. Switch to earth for crippling and blinding, water for healing, and air for mobility.

Depending on your choice on weapons you will have different options. For example, if you are using a staff, you can reflect projectiles and use some area crippling with earth, stun enemies and run faster with aire, and you have massive heal and condition cleansing with water.

Remember that you must move all the time, do not stand in front of the enemy looking how they wipe the floor with you. Run around them, looking for their backs, and if they get too close to you, use your dodge to avoid attacks and keep attacking at a safe distance. Just don’t stop moving, and keep changing your attunements as required.

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Posted by: Reciprocity.8021

Reciprocity.8021

Try this, do not use fire attunement. Switch to earth for crippling and blinding, water for healing, and air for mobility.

Depending on your choice on weapons you will have different options. For example, if you are using a staff, you can reflect projectiles and use some area crippling with earth, stun enemies and run faster with aire, and you have massive heal and condition cleansing with water.

Remember that you must move all the time, do not stand in front of the enemy looking how they wipe the floor with you. Run around them, looking for their backs, and if they get too close to you, use your dodge to avoid attacks and keep attacking at a safe distance. Just don’t stop moving, and keep changing your attunements as required.

So I need to be constantly changing between attunements? Also I do stay mobile, constantly moving. Rarely do I stand still.

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Posted by: Morrigan.2809

Morrigan.2809

hi- I suck so hard at ele that I still have this problem at lvl58.

this is what I can tell you:

In GW2 elementalist plays a bit differently than your standard caster class.
Attunement swapping is essential and you are really hampering yourself if you only stick to one or two.

Weapon choices make a huge difference in play style so check them all out.
I found that I survived best by using either sceptre/focus or staff.
My husband plays a dagger/dagger ele but I am not mobile enough and because it is in melee range it needs to be very very mobile

Try and upgrade your gear every 5 lvls or so- it is cheap and it can help

Gunnar’s Hold

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Posted by: Karizee.8076

Karizee.8076

Speccing mostly fire is what’s known as a glass cannon build. It’s hard to pull off for an inexperienced player as you have to be extremely good at not taking damage.

You can go tankier with your build (bunker build), here’s a good guide – pay special attention to the early leveling section:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-3-29-12

You’ll see that learning to dodge effectively and using all your attunements is key as well as using your combo skills. It’s one of the toughest professions to learn but (imo) one of the funnest once you’ve got the hang of it.

Good luck and don’t hesitate to ask if you have questions!

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Posted by: Rouven.7409

Rouven.7409

I would say I died the most with Ele at the beginning. I even shelved that character for a while.

“Whose Kitten is this?” – “It’s a Charr baby.”
“Whose Charr is this?”- “Ted’s.”
“Who’s Ted?”- “Ted’s dead, baby. Ted’s dead.”

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Why not try an easier profession to get the hang of the game and then level up the elementalist after you’re more familiar with the gameplay and content?

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Posted by: Apolyon.6937

Apolyon.6937

So I need to be constantly changing between attunements? Also I do stay mobile, constantly moving. Rarely do I stand still.

Yes, that’s an important part of the elementalist mechanics. After learning to use the attunements, you will be able to use them not only for damage/control/support, but also for creating your own combo effects…

For example, you can cast a water area of effect with healing, that at the same time is a combo field, and then use a blast combo finisher inside this area to create an additional area healing effect. Different combo fields and combo finishers will have different effects.

You can identify combo fields because they have a small puzzle like animation on the border. The skills description also mention if a skill is a combo field or combo finisher.

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Posted by: Seras.5702

Seras.5702

I don’t want to tell anyone to not play a particular profession. But elementalist is one of the harder ones to master, especially at low levels before you have access to all your skills & traits. So be preparred to put some effort into this profession (not to say you aren’t).

I found that, on the few times I’ve messed around with ele at low levels, that earth & water attunements worked best. Fire does great damage, so you can open up with that, but constantly swapping attunements is key, especially with earth giving you defense and water giving you access to heals & chills. Dodging is key in this game. No matter your armor or vitality or spec, you dodge an attack, it deals zero damage. Stay mobile, dish out conditions like blind, cripple, chill.

If you truly want to enjoy this game but just don’t like ele or your experience with an ele, don’t be discouraged. Try another profession. Guardian, warrior, and ranger are super easy to level in open world PvE. Try one of them and you might find the learning curve more forgiving. I did. I played Ranger & Guardian for a while before I tried my hand at Engineer. Now I love my Engi but know I wouldn’t have been able to play it effectively if it were the 1st profession I tried.

Flixx Gatebuster, Orwynn Lightgrave, Seras Snapdragon
[TTBH] [HATE], Yak’s Bend(NA)

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Posted by: Goettel.4389

Goettel.4389

Not meant as a cop-out but why not switch professions ? I found the elementalist pretty hard to play, but had a great time leveling my mesmer (and warrior and ranger). It might just be your playstyle isn’t well suited to the elementalist, I know mine wasn’t.

Send an Asura who knows math. Problem solved.

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Posted by: kishter.9578

kishter.9578

use you bunk…oh wait!

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that.

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Posted by: SuLor.2840

SuLor.2840

So I mostly levelled my ele with dagger dagger constantly swapping attunements. I really liked it but did struggle at early levels, I recall dying a lot.

A suggestion I wanted to make as I have a friend who is currently leveling an ele and is at about lvl 20. She said that her preferred solo weapon set is scepter/focus and finds that using earth attunemnt on that set gives her quite a lot of survivability, and while it might take a little longer to kill things, she lives long enough to kill them.

Best of luck to you, Ele does have a bit if a steeper learning curve though I think a lot of it just has to do with that it’s balanced around having quite a few defensive traits and utility skills that you aren’t going to have really early on. I think if you can make it to 30, you’ll find the ele a lot of fun and not quite so difficult to keep alive, though they are by default the squishiest character in the game with the fewest number of hit points and lowest armor.

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Posted by: Alienmuppet.1942

Alienmuppet.1942

It boggles the mind. So many people seem to think ele is over powered and take much pleasure in the fact we got nerfed hard in the last patch. They just don’t realise how much we have to move about and dodge because we are quiet squigy. This eventually becomes a skill and we get good at evading attacks and running away, so then we appear tough and therefore hard to kill…

Anyway – I made the mistake of using staff all the way up to level 80, and controlling my character completely via the keyboard. I then started running dungeons and realised just how terribly bad I was, so after watching some ele’s on youtube, I first switched to using the mouse for turning, rather than using the keyboard. I don’t know if you are doing this yet? If not, try running forward and holding down the right mouse button while moving the mouse. This also turns the A and D keys into strafe left and right. It can take a while to get used to, but you’ll be so much more mobile if you do, and ele needs that. I practised by doing jumping puzzles and running along fences.

I now play dagger dagger as it is (or was) the most fun, and I like melee, but staff seems the easiest to get started with because you can do ranged attacks and can worry less about movement.

Learn to circle strafe your enemies, and learn about combos, and boons such as might and protection..

And as the others said, try a more defensive build.. don’t just put everything into fire.

Or it could just be that you are attempting to do group events..

Hope that helps!

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Posted by: Stooperdale.3560

Stooperdale.3560

Elementalist and thief are two professions where you need to learn to play quite quickly. Both classes get a lot better with traits as well. You need to use some active defenses (such as blinding enemies, knockdowns, cripples, missile defense) and dodges and also to know when to use them.

It’s quite possible to go through the levels just killing mobs to complete quest hearts and events. If you treat each fight as a learning experience, working out the skills and timing, you’ll be able to get better faster.

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Posted by: Yargesh.4965

Yargesh.4965

Staff for me is horrible solo, only use it in group content. I used earth 90% of the way to 80 so it is not mandatory to learn switching early, I do it all the time now but takes a while and earth bleeds and blinds are great while learning. Sceptor dagger is still my preference for solo play.

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Posted by: DEKeyzToChaos.7381

DEKeyzToChaos.7381

Ele is probably the hardest class to level in PvE because we have the defense of a piece of paper and hit like a wet noodle. As others have said, regardless of your weapon set, sitting in fire is not the best way to survive at low levels – you’ll want to use the blinds in air, the chills in water, and the bleeds and cripples in earth to control your enemies. Even with all that, yes, you’re going to be putting in 2-4 times the effort killing a group of mobs (2x most classes , 4x ranger, guardian, warr) – but my ele is my favorite because she’s just so much fun!

On an ele, you’ll probably want a balance of power and toughness-focused gear as your leveling – you’re not going to be able to just faceroll everything in armor with power stats. You’ll also want to trait defensively to start, then add more firepower in when you get to higher levels.

For skills, pick up Arcane Shield, Mist Form, and Glyph of Lesser Elementals as soon as you can. The glyph will give you a summonable facetank in water and earth attunements and a little bit more DPS (but not as durable) in fire and air. Arcane shield and mist form are two defensive (get outta jail free for a second) skills. All three of your healing skills (the 6 skill) are decent and are a matter of preference. If you like staff or scepter, also pick up Arcane Wave for another blast finisher for combos.

Self-comboing is an important concept for the staff, scepter/dagger, and scepter/focus skill sets. Some of your skills will produce AoE “fields” of a certain element, and then other skills act as a “finisher” that will pick up some effect based on the field that the finisher is used in. The wiki has more information on combos.

For traits, I would recommend putting 5 in Water first for some passive regen while in water attunement, then if you like to swap attunements put10 points in Arcane to pick up the “Elemental Attunement” major trait, then another 5 in Water. Otherwise, put 10 in water and then focus on either Earth (if you want more defense) or Fire (offense).

Feel free to hit me up if you have any other questions!

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Posted by: Nay of the Ether.8913

Nay of the Ether.8913

Everytime I see posts like this my first response is: practice dodging. For new players this mechanic is usually the most self defeating one. Also as an elementalist, one of the squishiest (statically) classes in the game, you need skills that bolster defense and healing to survive solo fighting multiple enemies. Just throwing on your heal when you get in trouble won’t save you. You need to keep distance between you and the enemies,and if that becomes impossible, like some people mentioned, either retreat or use what’s called “CC” or “crowd control” skills. These are things that inhibit enemy movement like cripples, chills, immobilizes, knockdowns, ect. but can also include blinds, weakness, teleports (sometimes referred to as “soft CC”) The cool thing about ele, is they have access to almost all of this stuff. Also, as an ele you MUST get used to swapping your elemental attunements (your F1-4 keys) and understand how each one works for you. Don’t just sit in fire magic all day and expect spectacular results. Use water for healing and chills, earth for conditions/blinds/defensive skills, air has some cc too as well as escapes/knockdowns/blinds, ect. Some elementailist builds are built around the premise of attunement swapping constantly (although for other ele builds constant swapping isn’t necessary, you should still swap based on your situation like I mentioned above). Any questions hit me up or one of the other individuals that replied to you, we’d be more than happy to help you out.

http://almunns.wix.com/elitedeathsociety
~Surrender fiend and you will get an easy death
~I could promise you the same…but it would be a lie…

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Posted by: Nay of the Ether.8913

Nay of the Ether.8913

Staff for me is horrible solo, only use it in group content. I used earth 90% of the way to 80 so it is not mandatory to learn switching early, I do it all the time now but takes a while and earth bleeds and blinds are great while learning. Sceptor dagger is still my preference for solo play.

Staff is ok solo if you plan on jumping into massive amounts of enemies on your own, but it turns into a largely defensive weapon at that point

http://almunns.wix.com/elitedeathsociety
~Surrender fiend and you will get an easy death
~I could promise you the same…but it would be a lie…

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Posted by: Nay of the Ether.8913

Nay of the Ether.8913

use you bunk…oh wait!

bunker still works you just can’t smash your face on the keyboard anymore and roll it back and forth to get results, the skill level on it was raised is all, and honestly it was due time (and yes I played ele before and after the change and I quite like it. it’s not as boring to play anymore)

http://almunns.wix.com/elitedeathsociety
~Surrender fiend and you will get an easy death
~I could promise you the same…but it would be a lie…

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Posted by: Raf.1078

Raf.1078

Try dagger/dagger for solo. I run a staff ele in wvw. I leveled my ele from 25 to 80 mostly in wvw. Running with a staff and a assisting a large group lets you focus on aoe healing, crowd control and dps. Something the staff is good for.

Good group profession. Solo can be challenging..so keep moving and switching attunements. A few points in the arcane trait line will increase your speed of switching att’s also.

PF/ GOAT on Tarnished Coast (Semi-Retired)
Raf Longshanks-80 Norn Guardian / 9 more alts of various lvls / Charter Member Altaholics Anon

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Posted by: Euryon.9248

Euryon.9248

Most people are surprised when I tell them this, but I had a FAR harder time with my mesmer than with my ele. I found myself constantly kiting mobs who tended to ignore my illusions (which were doing almost no damage on their own), and it took forever to get through some mobs/events/hearts.

My D/D elementalist, while theoretically squishier, seemed to do more damage and was able to get through mobs faster, while dying less. I started my traiting in Earth just to get that extra toughness, and got the Lesser Elemental early (usually choosing the Earth version since he’s the best meat shield of the bunch), and was able to use hit-and-run tactics to quickly wear down the mobs while avoiding too much damage at once. I found the Fire-Earth combo (4 – switch – 4 – 5) wore down a lot of mobs without having to take more than 1 real hit before dodging out, and the extra might made the fight easier.

I will also say that running a D/D elementalist forced me to become a better player (I started with a Ranger and Warrior, and didn’t have to play light on my feet to survive in most cases). You have to be more aware of your surroundings, you have to learn when to dodge and when you can get that one extra melee attack in that might finish or bleed out the mob. Conditions are also your friend, which is why my build is heavy on Earth, Fire (sort of), and Arcana, and light on Air. It is not the classic D/D build, I will say that. It’s also why the RTL nerf isn’t going to drastically change my style.

If you can learn how to play your elementalist, I think you will find most of the rest of the classes to be easier (except possibly the Mesmer, but that’s just my bias).

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Posted by: Nay of the Ether.8913

Nay of the Ether.8913

Most people are surprised when I tell them this, but I had a FAR harder time with my mesmer than with my ele. I found myself constantly kiting mobs who tended to ignore my illusions (which were doing almost no damage on their own), and it took forever to get through some mobs/events/hearts.

My D/D elementalist, while theoretically squishier, seemed to do more damage and was able to get through mobs faster, while dying less. I started my traiting in Earth just to get that extra toughness, and got the Lesser Elemental early (usually choosing the Earth version since he’s the best meat shield of the bunch), and was able to use hit-and-run tactics to quickly wear down the mobs while avoiding too much damage at once. I found the Fire-Earth combo (4 – switch – 4 – 5) wore down a lot of mobs without having to take more than 1 real hit before dodging out, and the extra might made the fight easier.

I will also say that running a D/D elementalist forced me to become a better player (I started with a Ranger and Warrior, and didn’t have to play light on my feet to survive in most cases). You have to be more aware of your surroundings, you have to learn when to dodge and when you can get that one extra melee attack in that might finish or bleed out the mob. Conditions are also your friend, which is why my build is heavy on Earth, Fire (sort of), and Arcana, and light on Air. It is not the classic D/D build, I will say that. It’s also why the RTL nerf isn’t going to drastically change my style.

If you can learn how to play your elementalist, I think you will find most of the rest of the classes to be easier (except possibly the Mesmer, but that’s just my bias).

Good points there, D/D can still be used without going bunker or might stacking. Also, on mesmer, clones don’t do damage unless you shatter them (they can still apply conditions though, which is why a condition mesmer is clone heavy and not so much phantasm) but phantasms are the heavy hitters. If you choose mesmer and aren’t going the cookie cutter shatter build route, take that into consideration (and yes, phantasm builds work just fine still, they just require more work than shatters) and condition mesmers are easy mode, you just spam attacks and keep conditions stacking up pretty much while keeping out of the fray. The tactics are the same for every profession depending on what type of build you run. Condition builds require more kiting to let the conditions settle in and do their max potential, that’s why most people won’t run them. As far as ele goes they can fill pretty much any role, just know that the closer you get to pure dps the harder it’s going to be because it requires a whole lot more footwork.

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~Surrender fiend and you will get an easy death
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Posted by: Tikky.6231

Tikky.6231

Most people are surprised when I tell them this, but I had a FAR harder time with my mesmer than with my ele. I found myself constantly kiting mobs who tended to ignore my illusions (which were doing almost no damage on their own), and it took forever to get through some mobs/events/hearts.

My D/D elementalist, while theoretically squishier, seemed to do more damage and was able to get through mobs faster, while dying less.

Heh, that’s funny: this is similar to my own experience. I use a scepter and… i forget what off-hand, for my ele (don’t play her as much, right now, as i’m leveling other characters), and keep a staff in my backpack. I switch attunement often enough, to fit the circumstances: fire is my basic mode, earth is for tougher fights, air for structures, and sometimes water, but that’s rarer. I have some DOT damage traited, but it’s not my focus. I went more for hitting power and crits.

I always feel like i’m hitting like a wet noodle, with my mes.

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Posted by: Nay of the Ether.8913

Nay of the Ether.8913

I always feel like i’m hitting like a wet noodle, with my mes.

Read my post above, I really hate using this term, but…you’re doing it wrong ;-)

http://almunns.wix.com/elitedeathsociety
~Surrender fiend and you will get an easy death
~I could promise you the same…but it would be a lie…