Guild Wars 2

I’m new to MMOs, I’ve levelled a Sylvari Elementalist to Level 15, and am starting to struggle now. I find myself dying lots in the story events, even those which are levelled below 15. I have been trying to use Dagger+Dagger as guides on here say it is better.

Main Hand : Traders Dagger (Weapon Strength 157 -167., +6 Healing Power, required level = 7)
Off-Hand : Mighty Dagger (150 -159, +7 Power, required level 15)

Any tips? Should I buy a another Mighty Dagger (one that says L15) and replace the Trader’s Dagger (as this is only L7), even though I’d lose the -6 Healing Power?

The Personal Story missions tend to be incredibly difficult (sometimes even impossible) when you are low level.

My advice is to level up some more and update your gear, then try again.

When in doubt, use http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Lesser_Elementals to get a tanky earth elemental to distract your foes.

Low level stats really don’t make much of a difference. But you should keep your gear at least close to your level, which does include armor too.

Your issue likely stems from inexperience with the dodging mechanic with slow reaction times on attunement swapping with poor cooldown management.

These are things you will just learn in time.

I’m not sure if you are doing the same mistake I did when starting out my elementalist – staying in one element. I knew from the beginning I wanted to concentrate on damage so knew I would trait in fire (the name of my elementalist, Amber Everglow, would be a clue). It wasn’t until I started learning the skills and feeling more comfortable in all the elements that I started to survive better and really enjoy playing my elementalist. Also because we’re really squishy learn defensive play too, not just damage. This is the advice I needed in the beginning, but you might not be making my same mistakes.

Lazuli.2098:

I’m not sure if you are doing the same mistake I did when starting out my elementalist – staying in one element. I knew from the beginning I wanted to concentrate on damage so knew I would trait in fire (the name of my elementalist, Amber Everglow, would be a clue). It wasn’t until I started learning the skills and feeling more comfortable in all the elements that I started to survive better and really enjoy playing my elementalist. Also because we’re really squishy learn defensive play too, not just damage. This is the advice I needed in the beginning, but you might not be making my same mistakes.

I was going to say basically the same thing. It took me many levels to realize that I do much better when I swap elements. It’s a lot of skills to juggle at once, but it will greatly increase your damage, healing, outgoing conditions (blinds, etc.) if you constantly swap.

It takes some time to really learn and remember what the weapons skills do and use them appropriately. But even without knowing what they do, it is probably better to just randomly swap and spam all of the skills, especially the high cooldown ones in dagger offhand. These are powerful skills that ought to be regularly rotated (except maybe the air ones, which have more specific uses).

Good luck!

I also recommend trying scepter dagger… it gives you some nice melee aoe (pbaoe) but also allows you to back up a bit. Also, dagger focus is nice as focus has a fun invulnerability in earth, a reflect in air, and some okay support spells to go with your dagger melee main hand.

I also like a staff.

It’s good to learn the skills of all the weapons and get comfortable with them so you know what situations each are good for.

Also try out most, if not all, your utility skills. I can’t believe that I had my elementalist almost from the beginning and only started using conjured weapons in the last few months (of course I have concentrated more on my mesmer but that’s no excuse).

Although I probably like the Lightening Hammer better the Firery Greatsword goes with my theme better:

Personal Story missions are generally more difficult than open world content at that level. (Sometimes it’s a huge difficulty leap.)

In general I’d wait until you’re several levels above them — you will be downscaled and it’ll still be a challenge — and to use caution. With rare exceptions, the gear rewards for PS missions aren’t that great anyway, aside from unlocking skins, so you won’t be missing anything that way.

OP, if you are on a North American server, feel free to add me and I can lend you a hand with your personal story any time I’m online (assuming I’m not running a guild thing).

Use every weapon combo possible. Unlock all your skills for each attunement.
Find which weapon/weapon combo works best for you.
Get comfortable with not staying in one attunement, and also how to manage swapping attunements so the cooldowns work in your favor and not against.
I am in no means an experienced Ele, as mine is only level 10. I have played one to 20 before, however.
I struggled exessively the first time through. This time is nowhere near as rough, but I’m still working on learning my timing with attunement swaps so my cooldowns don’t wreck me. :P
Also, I would avoid healing power at all costs… but that’s just me. I have, personally, found it to be more detrimental than it is helpful.

Arcane traits a a life saver, literally! Water as well but they’re slightly less important.

As a Dagger/Dagger, you’re a frontliner. You have to know when/how to dodge, on top of constantly swapping between your different elements and using your utilities. Don’t think of yourself as a traditional stand-back-and-cast magic user, think of yourself as a lightly armoured rogue with magical abilities.

Don’t force yourself to stick to any single weapon set, but rather choose the one that works best for you in the current situation.

Personal Story missions tend to involve being (heavily) outnumbered. If you chose the Shield of the Moon option for your Sylvari, for example…

AoE works best for those missions, which generally means using staff.

Example: Water staff lets you drop AoE heals, which can keep friendly NPCs (aka meat shields) alive longer.

Also, try using combos:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Table_of_elementalist_combo_skills

First off, you should be aware that ele is one of the most difficult classes in the game to level, and one of the harder to play in general. The combination of lowest base health (along with thieves) and light armor makes us very squishy. But once you get it down and hit 80, we’re also one of the most rewarding and fun classes to play.

As others said, don’t pick D/D just because the forums told you to. Try all the weapons and find the one that you like best. I’m a staff man, myself. Have been since beta. And yes, learning how to cycle through your attunements and combo between them is crucial to your success and survival. Study those links virtualtourist posted ^. Learn which of your moves are fields, which are blast finishers, and what effects combining them will create.

Take it slow with your PS missions. I waited until I was 10+ levels above the story levels before I did most of them; otherwise I was having the same trouble you are. As far as gear, stay away from healing power for now. The returns simply aren’t worth it versus power gear, particularly not if you’re running D/D. Try a mix of power, vitality, and toughness gear while leveling.

Once you get to traits, I’d suggest Arcane and Water as main lines, at least until you’re more confident with the class. I still run classic bunker (0/0/2/6/6) and it works great for me. Water gives me lots of condi cleanse and healing and arcane keeps my attunement cooldowns low + fun stuff like Elemental Attunement and Blasting Staff.

Try all your utilities as well. I was very fond of the elementals when leveling up; the earth elemental is a fantastic tank. Glyph of Storms, particularly on earth, was my friend as well. These days I prefer cantrips, which I wouldn’t go anywhere without. And then there’s Arcane Wave. This skill is a must-have. It never leaves my bar.

Good luck to you. Let us know if you need any more help.

Wow, thanks for all these responses. To reply to some of the points.

I have unlocked all the skills for each attunement, but struggle to know which is best and when. If I feel panicky and am getting attacked, I tend to just activate as many as skills as possible, then swap to another attunement and do the same, and repeat (all the while trying to circle strafe + jump around the enemy by holding down Mouse+2 and keeping A or D pressed down).

I have 11 unspent skill points, not quite sure where to spend them – http://imgbin.org/index.php?page=image&id=17399

I’ve heard about traits and spoken to the profession trainers, but am a little confused. I purchased a fire one from the trainer but the menu option is greyed out – I take it I cannot select traits at all until L30? I’ve read to avoid the fire traitline.

Kalarchis mentioned “Try a mix of power, vitality, and toughness gear while levelling” – but I tend to just use the gear that I find, not focus on ones which have certain qualities – where can I easily find the power, vitality, and toughness gear?

Also, is there any guide to what these numbers mean (e.g. “0/0/2/6/6”) ?

BenHUK.3869:

Also, is there any guide to what these numbers mean (e.g. “0/0/2/6/6”) ?

You have 5 trait lines.

You can spend up to 6 trait points in each line.

That number sequence you gave above means that you spent:
0 points in Fire
0 points in Air
2 points in Earth
6 points in Water
6 points in Arcana

BenHUK.3869:

I have 11 unspent skill points, not quite sure where to spend them – http://imgbin.org/index.php?page=image&id=17399

I’ve heard about traits and spoken to the profession trainers, but am a little confused. I purchased a fire one from the trainer but the menu option is greyed out – I take it I cannot select traits at all until L30? I’ve read to avoid the fire traitline.

Kalarchis mentioned “Try a mix of power, vitality, and toughness gear while levelling” – but I tend to just use the gear that I find, not focus on ones which have certain qualities – where can I easily find the power, vitality, and toughness gear?

Also, is there any guide to what these numbers mean (e.g. “0/0/2/6/6”) ?

Try to advance to the glyph of lesser elementals, as an elemental catching the aggro will help you a lot. There are enough possibilities to get skill points in the entire game, as sooner (for traits) or later they are used as a currency too. After you have reached lvl 80 there still is a progression bar that lets you earn XP, granting you one skill point when it’s full, the same like when leveling.

The trait from the book you bought from the trainer is available at level 36 if you then put two points into the related tree. When you reach lvl 30 the trait menue will be accessible, and the traits will also show you what activity they need to be unlocked. You can also buy the traits from the profession trainer in case you decide to skip the related activity.

The easiest way to get a mixed power, vitality and toughness gear is to craft it. Go to the tailoring npc to learn the crafting skill, then combine components with signets at the crafting station to get items with either vitality or toughness or power or later a combination of two stats.

The numbers are related to builds, specificly to the distribution of trait points. You can go to eg. http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ and do some planning for your build.

Thanks. I’ve unlocked ‘Arcane Wave’ but is very difficult to use in melee as its ranged, so I have to use the mouse to aim it, and so have to stop strafing and so an open to be attacked. Have unlocked glyph of lesser elementals also and will see how I get on with it.

In your settings, you can change how AoE skills are used (AoE stands for Area of Effect, which are the skills that have a green targeting circle).

I prefer to use the option where pressing the number for the skill brings up the circle and releasing the number uses the skill. This lets me put my mouse at the appropriate range and cast while still strafing.

Kalarchis.8635:

As others said, don’t pick D/D just because the forums told you to. Try all the weapons and find the one that you like best.

This is worth repeating. A lot of times, weapon and build advice found on forums is optimized for:

— people who have mastered the skills of the game (as a player) and are familiar with and understand the implications of various boons, conditions, combos etc.

— level 80 characters with all available traits and good gear. Or at least, characters of a level high enough to have utility skills unlocked and some of the traits that make the build effective.

— specific purposes (often a “PVE” build really means “dungeon clearing in a coordinated group”, which doesn’t necessarily mean it will or won’t be good for solo PVE)

I believe it’s worth changing up your weapons and playstyle every so often as you level, even if you find something that works well, just so you’re familiar with the available tools. How they work at level 50 can be very different from how they work at level 5 when you’re basically just unlocking the weapon skills.

Work on map completion for a while, to level up. For example, Grove→Caledon→Divinity Reach→Queensdale→ Heolbrak…etc.

If you need help somewhere, ask in map chat. There are usually people around who like to help.

Don’t give-up, eles start slowly.

BenHUK.3869:

Kalarchis mentioned “Try a mix of power, vitality, and toughness gear while levelling” – but I tend to just use the gear that I find, not focus on ones which have certain qualities – where can I easily find the power, vitality, and toughness gear?

I craft all my gear, and for alts I craft them a new set of armor+trinkets+weapons every 10 levels. I’ve found this makes leveling much easier. That said, crafting is complicated and runs a lot of materials that you probably don’t have amassed yet. I’d suggest you dabble around in Jeweler and Artificer for the moment so you can craft yourself some trinkets and weapons and start to learn how crafting works.

Beyond that there are three reliable ways to get gear:

1) Armor/weapon vendors. These are in every city and sell gear at 5 level intervals. They always offer zerk gear (power-precision-ferocity) and it’s cheap, so this is an easy way to get your power gear while leveling.

2) Heart vendors. Once you complete a heart the NPC becomes a vendor. They’ll typically have a few pieces of armor/weapons/trinkets with varying stats you can choose from. Always check the vendor after you complete the heart to see if they’ve got anything good. You buy this gear with karma.

3) Trading post. Go on the TP and filter your results by level and item type, then search through the listings for what you want. This is probably the easiest way for you to get the stats you want, as the majority of combinations will be available here at all levels.

As for the “panicky skill use in combat,” don’t worry, that’ll pass the longer you play. Try going to an area with easy enemies (I practiced a lot on moas and deer) and just practice different skill rotations on them. Our combos are non-intuitive but at some point it’s going to just click for you.