Guild Wars 2

I’m using berserker gear with 6/6/2/0/0. However the damage is great but i spend more time downed than playing, I know guild wars doesn’t have a agro system like some mmo’s however it seems that my high crit rate makes mobs home in on me so i need to increase survival a little without too much of a dps loss so i don’t get downed to easy in pve.

Can anyone advise me on what i can change up give me a little help in staying alaive whilst keeping as much dps as possible.

Thanks

You have options. You can change your build, gear, utilities, learn the encounters better, and or just get better over all with practice. You’re a glass cannon so bring your blocks and survival skills to a boss fight if need be. You’ll do more then when you were dead.

Honestly, practice practice practice.

I died a lot at first. But I paid attention & learned to watch for attack tells & know I generally now when & where to time dodges.

Don’t be afraid to be at max range. Most of the time, keep moving.

Need a tank? Greater Earth Elemental is your buddy.

And If you need to, remember, you’ve got slows in Water. Stuns & shoves in Wind. Barriers & Reflects in Earth.

You do more damage in Fire, sure, but if switching attunements keeps you from kissing the floor, can’t hurt.

What weapons do you use? I’m guessing Dagger/Dagger or Dagger/Focus by the absence of the Blasting Staff, and because cool kids do it…

6/6/2/0/0 is BLARGH IN YER FACE KILL KILL KILL build. Natural glass cannon. So your main defenses are movement, your utilities and whatever your weapon gives you.

Focus gives you invul and a condition cleanse and a projectile block in Earth (though only awesome people time the projectile block in Earth correctly. I am not awesome :/). Also it gives you a projectile destroyer in air.

I found that swapping 2 points in Earth for 2 points in Arcana for the vigor trait is helpful for survival (more dodge! run away! run away!). Passive heals in water aren’t very helpful (at least for me).

Greater Earth Elemental is a fantastic tank and covers a multitude of sins.

Arcane Shield is simply delightful. Combine with focus’ Earth 5 and you have enough invul time for even someone as old and slow as me to survive.

Ice Bow is your friend, because 5 = FREEZE MUTHAFA…kitten. Followed by 4 of course. And 2 for good measure because why not (but people will laugh at you).

Allegedly Lightning Hammer is also awesome because of blinds-a-plenty, but so far it only got me killed.

When all else fails and you have room to maneuver… go Staff and run away. You’ll look less like a hero of Tyria and more like a scared little girl frantically tossing burning snowballs at the enemy while running away, but it works.

Also, among the best advice ever taken too late: all of your jewelry should be Zerker, and you can swap a few pieces of other gear for PVT. Currently I have everything Zerker except legs and head. Gives me 12Ksomething for HP, about 45% crit and about 230% crit severity (no foods or buffs). It might not be hall-of-fame worthy, but it gets the job done and keeps me on my feet and off my kitten , more often than not.

Some little changes can be made (not all at once):

- Use a Dagger/Focus build
- Use an Energy sigil
- Switch to 66002 for more Vigor on Crit
- Add more block and/or stun break: Arcane Shield or Signet of Air for roaming
- Always stay at max melee range (300)
- So you can observe the enemy’s tell and dodge. Usually try to dodge the ones that have long winded animation
- Use Lightning Hammer or Sandstorm against a group of mob
- Use Glyph of Elemental in Earth as a temporarily tank
- Use a bigger heal skill. Either Glyph for extra boon or Ether Renewal for condi cleanse
- Use staff if you want to keep an extra distance from a group of mobs (and it gives an extra dodge too).
- Use steal-health food buff.

just run:
6/2/2/2/2
or
6/2/0/4/2
with all the damage modifiers and blasting staff + minimum 2 cantrips. Nobody will care or notice if your meteors do 200 less damage.

As hard as it can be, try to be aware of what’s actually killing you.

Here’s some examples:
-Are you on melee bosses and just taking big hits? Utilize range.
-Are you dying to projectile pressure? D/F Air4 and Earth4 should relieve a lot or Staff Earth3.
-Are you dying while melee stacked? Try D/F for invuln. Use Sandstorm if it’s non-boss (Defiance wrecks Blinds)
-Are you dying to telegraphed attacks and/or red circles? Gonna need to learn the dodge timings.
-Are you forced to stack and the only zerker in a non-zerker group and things aren’t dying fast enough to cover yourself with invulns/dodges/evades/blocks/reflects/ect? This is a prime situation where increasing selfish defensive stats = lowers group survivability. Just relax and accept you’ll have a bad day.

First thing I suggest is changing from stone splinters to renewing stamina. You’ll have permanent vigour as long as you’re always attacking which is much much better than changing your gear because it costs nothing to change traits.

Another suggestion is to use lifesteal food like omnomberry pie/ghost or slices of candied dragon rolls.

What does 4 in water buy you?

I dunno why people never mention this, but running lava tomb is seriously legit. Going down is literally part of your dps rotation, since the double lava font + crazy downstate modifier are mad dps. Vs trash it will pretty much ensure a rally, whereas vs bosses it turns going down into not so bad a predicament as it would otherwise be.

Everything everyone else said is probably true, but on glass staff it’s not necessarily a bad idea to stick with the most dps attainable but just adding lava tomb for when you (arguably inevitably) go down.

I used lava tomb a lot when I was learning how to ele. Even if you made a mistake you still will be able to do a decent damage and your party members will get a fire field to blast.

Honestly, practice dodging and blinding, it’s an elementalists best friend.

Iris Ng.9845:

Some little changes can be made (not all at once):

- Use a Dagger/Focus build
- Use an Energy sigil
- Switch to 66002 for more Vigor on Crit
- Add more block and/or stun break: Arcane Shield or Signet of Air for roaming
- Always stay at max melee range (300)
- So you can observe the enemy’s tell and dodge. Usually try to dodge the ones that have long winded animation
- Use Lightning Hammer or Sandstorm against a group of mob
- Use Glyph of Elemental in Earth as a temporarily tank
- Use a bigger heal skill. Either Glyph for extra boon or Ether Renewal for condi cleanse
- Use staff if you want to keep an extra distance from a group of mobs (and it gives an extra dodge too).
- Use steal-health food buff.

^ This is a great post and as an elementalist player who runs 6/6/2, I recommend that you follow those tips.

I’d just add that you can use Swirling Winds (Air 4) and Obsidian Flesh (Earth 5) – those two are life-savers, SW destroys any projectiles in a very big radius while Obsidian Flesh allows you to survive through any spike damage such as a large group of mobs engaging you and your party at the same time.

Mostly what everyone else said – get renewing stamina, use of blinds on trash mobs, get some health steal food, ect. Iris Ng listed it pretty thoroughly.

My personal advice, if you still have a really really hard time, is to run a 6/0/0/4/4 build and to swap your weapons and possibly 1-2 jewelery pieces to valk (the rest still use zerk). Your damage will go down a huge amount but your survivability goes way up, and you still can give out might/fury (you actually give out a little more might from the +boon duration). But once you can go through a fight a few times without being downed on a build like that, immediately go back to the normal 6/6/x, setup, so you dont get too reliant on the hp/protection to survive.

Gokil.2543:

I dunno why people never mention this, but running lava tomb is seriously legit.

^This. Lava tomb not only will help you get upright again but it saves your party members from having to ress you. And it provides another blast field so you are still being useful when you drop. It’s been the greatest asset to me in dungeons!