Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone, I’m still working on my Elementalist and I’m not yet that much experienced. I’m enjoying the play style it requires but I have a few doubts. I will be focusing on PVE content and mainly I will be using a staff.

Now my questions:

1. Is the staff the best PVE oriented weapon?
2. How do you guys keep bleeding and burning on the target for more efficient damage?
3. Does Condition Damage gear influences both bleeding and burning effects?

I’m sorry but I couldn’t find any places to look this information up, so I made a post. If this is already documented somewhere, please be so kind to link me up!

Thank you in advance for your reply.

1. For soloing I use Scepter/Dagger, some people use Dagger/Dagger. Anything in groups I use Staff – so dynamic events, dungeons, WvW, or if solo and encountering large groups of mobs I go staff (i.e. some story quests). Staff can be used solo if you know how to attune dance properly to use all the CC’s available on staff to keep the mob in place while throwing down damage and taking advantage of combo fields/finishers. It’s not ideal but if you’re stuck with it for some reason and can’t get out of combat to switch to S/D it does work, just takes practice and has less single target dps.

2. As for bleeding and burning, I don’t worry about keeping them up. I focus more on power but conditions are good for extra damage so feel free to use both Fire and Earth attacks. Although when I go with S/D I usually go Ring of Fire, Arcane Wave, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, then quick switch to Earth and a quick Earthquake. Or I might start with Ride the Lightning into Blinding Flash, then Ring of Fire, etc. So it’s mostly Fire stuff but it’s nice because you get a lot of damage and a lot of stacks of might, along with decent control of the mob with a blind and a knockdown. Individual mobs go down fast this way.

3. Yes, Condition Damage makes every condition hit harder.

Personally I like S/D for PvE. More Aoe. D/D is nice too, just not a fan of staff.

1. No, it’s best for dungeons or champions which kill you in 1-2 hits in melee. Staff damage skills are AoE and require target to stand still. D/D or S/D are better choise (I like D/D).
2. Just keep using condition attacks =) . And use utility skills like signet of fire, because without it (or 30 points in arcane) you can’t keep burning and bleeding. You need to find effective for you combo yourself and it’s depend from situation. For mass damage is good churning earth > dragon’s breath for example. But for one target dragon’s breath/tooth > earth auto-attack and renew burning with signet of fire.
3. Condition damage stat affects all condition damage (burn, bleed, poison).
I personaly don’t like condition build. It’s to slow. But some pople like ti.

1. Any weapon can be good anywhere. You just have to get used to playing it. The only exception is in certain dungeon fights where fighting in melee is pretty much a death sentence for anybody
2. The only way to keep the effects up is to keep applying them. It’s tough to keep bleed up with staff, though. You’d need lots of condition duration to make it easier.
3. Condi damage affects every condition that deals damage.

I like to dungeon, and solo hard content.
Scepter/focus is good for medium range kiting\circle strafing, defense and combo healing. Its fast. keeps me at range has some decent bursty DPS and control effects.

4 seconds of invulnerability while still being able to cast is powerful stuff. I used this combo in WvW sometimes too but i will fall back to the staff for siege stuff.

Staff is good when im in a strong group and i fall back to a more relaxed supportive role.

I like this combo but i am noob at the ele so…. Although i made it through AC story using this setup with 1 death in a pug at L30.

Your traits really impact how effective your weapon skills are. For instance, the aura build isn’t great if you’re not dagger/dagger. Essentially, almost any weapon set can be useful in a situation (there are limits, dagger/dagger isn’t great for hitting people on walls in WvW and I believe focus offhand isn’t great for mobility).

So look at the traits and what each weapon set focuses on and find ones that play off each other.

So let me place another question:

Is Condition Damage gear the most efective gear for staff users?

I’d say Condition Damage gear is better for Scepter/Dagger builds for the burns and ranged bleed stacking in earth. That said, your mileage may vary; I personally find that power and +healing power benefits staff better, though I only use staff for group content.

Most ppl run S/D for PVE. Use earth for conditional damage
Most ppl say Staff is a bit harder to run in both PVE and SPVP.

What i do is switch back and forth when i get bored

You need to learn to get really good at both. I think what has helped my game more than anything is playing differnt builds in SPVP. Getting good at PVP will make PVE seem like a faceroll with any weapons.

I run with Staff in Solo currently because it’s the best weapon that I have. My daggers are still low level and I’m cheap so not worried about buying more.

Staff is GREAT for solo if you know what you’re doing. I can take on 4-5 guys at a time with no problem. You just have to be sure you’re taking full advantage of CC’s, AoE effects, and your 6-8 skills.

When I was running Scepter/Dagger or Dagger/Dagger I couldn’t take on near the amount of mobs I can now since I had to be close range and could get taken down quick.

rare weapons on the market are pretty cheap… just saying.
also 1 at level dungeon EXP run can get you 2 pieces of rare armor.

What is it with the staff hate?

Staff is perfectly viable and powerful solo weapon along with everything else if played well.
It´s full of aoe, and that means that when you can keep yourself alive (which is easy with the repertoire we have there) no matter how many enemies there is, it´s as fast as taking one single mob.
You can take as many enemies at once as you can fit on a lava font aoe.

Staff is pretty handily the best ele weapon for all situations, but it has the highest skill ceiling by a massive amount. Not only do you have to master attunement swapping and every one of all 20 skills, but you also have to learn combo fields by heart, be hyper-aware of positioning, and anticipate or control the enemy’s movement. If you’re the sort of player that can pull off that many things at once though (hooray for ADHD! Never thought I’d say that…), then you’ll be pretty much unstoppable.

staff has the fewest defensive skills of those available.
scepter/focus the most and easiest
dagger/focus has the same number but dagger defensive skills are harder to use.

For really hard stuff the shout combat invulnerability on focus is unmatched.