Ok, hey guys, im still kinda new here but here goes!
Im at about level 14 with my elementalist, and I love the concept of it! I really want to use staff, but it doesn’t seem great so some tips for that would be nice or suggestions for other combinations that i should start to get familiar with?
Im also starting to think about traits, and wondering what to get, but I guess it all depends on the weapon…?
I’ve read the stickies and tried some googling, but I can’t seem to find a ’Beginner’s Guide’ type thing.
go dagger/dagger if ur just starting out in pve, staff is more for wvw (group play)
for traits, go 10 in arcana for increased movement speed with daggers and follow up with 20 in air for auras apply swiftness and fury, and reduced recharge on air skills so u can have perma swiftness (between updraft, the shocking aura, and the healing glyph while attuned to air)
Edit: this would be used for map completion
I was a power ranger before it was cool.
Guild Leader of Favorable Winds [Wind]
Message me in game (i play nights and weekends NA eastern). I have played ele pretty much since beta and can help you craft a build / give you the pros and cons of the trait lines / weapon combos.
Watch some Woodenpotatoes videos on the elementalist. There are some builds here in the forums that you could try out unless they’re outdated.
For lvl I prefer Scepter/Dagger with lots of points in air. Just circle around enemies while auto-attacking got me up all the way to lvl 80 :p.
For dungeons swap out the dagger for focus. Make sure to practice a bit with the focus first. D/D is fun too in pve and Staff works well if you time your CC’s right (CC=crowd control)
Edit: I wasn’t that thread’s creator and don’t propose that my responses in that thread are anything close to the “best” leveling build guide, but it’s better than nothing… I hope. >.>
The only thing I’d like to add is to use Staff as the last resort weapon, when things are too rough for you.
I think I remembered using my Staff against Kraits because with too many knockdowns, it was difficult for me to DPS them (plus I was in a place where using dagger’s mobility attacks could easily make me fall).
Using Earth elemental and the Elemental elite as tanks, I was able to DPS them better.
I leveled with staff all the way to 80. Not saying its the best way but it’s doable if you like to play staff. If it doesn’t seem so great, as you say, branch out and try the other weapons to see if they fit your playstyle better. Staff is a bit slower than the other main-hand weapons so it’s usually used in groups when the enemy is not necessarily right up in your face all the time. Dagger or scepter will be a easier to move with. Whatever weapons you decide on, you’ll still have to learn what skills combo best together. In staff I learned to pull with a lava font that they then crossed to get to me, retreated with fire4, so they walked through fire to get to me, swapped to air attunement and pushed them back through the fire with the knockback, then used air5 to stun them at distance. By finding combinations like that you’re able to keep opponents at bay while still dealing damage.
Like Xallever, I used the elemental glyphs (both, while leveling) as an extra meat shield to tank while I DPSd. Unlock utility skills that fill holes you feel need help – if you’re taking too much damage unlock protective utilities (armor of earth) or if enemies are taking too long to down, pick up some damage skills to round out your build.
Dagger+Focus worked nice for me. That earth 5 got me out of trouble many times+ air dagger 3. And there is no complication on keep your damage consistent. Just attune to air and spam AA.
And while in fire the burn is pretty nice since mobs don’t cleanse it. Besides I had lots of fun using Dagger fire 3 + Focus fire 4. I would yell X fire!. Every time I pulled that out xD. You tecnically drop your flame wall and then use burning speed to create a Fire “X” under the mob. Burns them nicely.
There’s nothing wrong with staff ele for pve. If you trait for it at end game the damage per second is tremendous and the constant fire fire field from lava font makes stacking might child’s play. Of course in the ideal situation with the best players you can keep up 25 stacks of might without staff and do slightly better DPS with other weps. But in ordinary squads traited staff is very competitive in damage + might stacking.
At lower levels when you can’t trait for staff damage and yes its damage will fall behind other weps. Big deal. Anyway to maximize staff damage you have to spam Lava Font and Meteor Shower. Have to, no other way to get a lot of damage out of the staff.
The big problem is getting the mobs to stay in range of those two skills. For open world solo pve activities like exploring maps I’ve given up on doing a lot of damage with the staff from a distance. I run right into the middle of the mobs and get them all gathered up on me and hit lava font, flame burst and meteor shower. This is usually enough to kill trash mobs especially if you use arcane power skill on the meteor shower.
Surviving this was hard at lower levels, I had to hit Burning Retreat as soon as I was done and switch to water and self heal. But it still worked and the mobs died while I was busy healing from a safe distance. Now I don’t even need to do that. Use Armor of Earth or some other defense skill and wade right into the mobs and get lava font and meteor shower off at least. They will go down fast enough to keep you alive. Of course the great thing about ranged mobs is you can put a lava font right underneath them and they will stand there and take all the damage without moving out of it.
My main point here is staff works out great don’t worry about needing to use another wep. You will need to spam Lava Font and Meteor shower(especially lava font) to get good damage but thats not really a hard thing to do.
Something that every new Ele needs to know, it’s all about changing attunements constantly.
I can’t hit F1-F4 for the life of me when Im playing Ele, its too far from my movement/skills, so I have an alternate command for those to change attunement(I use Alt+1 through Alt+4), changing attunements makes you use all of your 20 skills. Some beginners are confused and assume that sticking to earth means Tankier, and automatically sticking to fire means more damage, when the healthy practice is to use all of your low recharge skills as often as possible while creating a rotation you are comfortable.
At low levels I used scepter + dagger, build up some might and use conjurers ( axe and hammer are valid choices). Glyph of elemental power / glyph of storm and glyph of elementals all work pretty decent in earth attunement. First trait points in fire ( cause power at low levels is OP).
At like lv 60, 30 fire and 20 air works great. Reduced glyph cooldowns ( almost perma elemental up time) and the astonishing damage boost from 30 fire makes it a strong leveling build.
I used staff when leveling because the extra range on all the skills, plus the support and CC, was a huge help. Especially at low levels when we don’t have any of the traits to help us, going dagger/dagger was a nightmare.
