Guild Wars 2

I have scoured the net and forums galore to find info on leveling an ele, but most times I get guides on end game pvp or WvWvW builds that are already 80. Is power>prec? And I realize there is a learning curve to the class, which is why I love the class, but as far as traits for pve and leveling what should be the case? Thanks to all the ele community for some answers. Or maybe link up some good vids or guidelines or tips on leveling traits and stacking stats.

Leveling an ele requires the same thing as any other class. Learn the class and play content. I’m guessing you’re asking how to learn the class more so that what content to play in order to level up fastest.

It’s widely agreed upon that investing trait points into power early on is very effective. After level 30 though, the usefulness diminishes. It’s probably worth keeping 10 points in fire to get the Internal Fire trait and utilizing the extra power going forward, but specing for Arcana and survival seems to yield better results in my experience.

Arcana is important from after level 20. I put 10 into it through level 30 making sure to grab Elemental Attunement. Then spent my next 5 points on Soothing Mist at level 35. I went back to Acana from 35-45 and utilized Blasting Staff, or Vigorous Scepter depending on my weapon. I put 5 points into earth for the bonus toughness, and after that I’ve been investing mostly into water and earth for the defensive bonuses, because damage is fine on my ele, and what really makes me effective is utilizing all attunments.

I’ve been saying it in a lot of threads, but it’s true. Learn to swap attunements to meets the needs of the situation for an encounter. Even though you trait for specific attunements and feel incentivized to stay in that attunement keep swaping them, you’ll roll back around to that attunement eventually.

Learning what all of your weapon skills do and in what situations to use them in is very important. It’s difficult to teach this through explanation and even video doesn’t do it justice, learning this from experience will create many “ah-ha!” moments.

Shockwave is pretty spot on with his post

In SPVP, fire is good but you’re still competitive even with only 10 points dedicated to fire.

But yea it’s all about what weapons you’re more comfortable with and learning what attunements provide the best results for you.

I only wish that the elementalist had a tad bit more base health. I’m not whining or anything but when playing as an elementalist, the way arenanet created the elementalist, the most effective way to have decent damage output, is to play close range.

Sure you could use the staff but a good portion of those spells can be either easily avoided or takes a little while to cast. Therefore most go for the dagger or scepter.

The elementalist is not a class intended to play close quarters but i feel that’s what we’re (elementalist players) are forced to do.

And on an ending point, I just want to state that I like the idea that arenanet had for the elementalist and it’s pretty cool, but it’s not totally efficient. I have hope that they’ll figure it out and will make elementalist players happy.

Well. I’m not ingame atm sadly, so can’t be completely accurate.
I started off with Staff like most do. And while that is fine when you’re running with alot of people during an event, beeing out on your own it got tricky, long cast times and the AoEs really didn’t work as ye had to kite all the time, and ended up just running in circle spamming fireballs.

However, around lvl 60ish i switched to dual daggers, and oh my, it’s a whole new world. Things die much quicker, you can take on more mobs, you’ve got way more mobility. However, Elementalists beeing rather squishy don’t survive well against alot of mobs. I don’t find it much of an issue due to the mobility and haste of which you can kill mobs, but. If you pull one too many, or pick up a ranged fella in addition to all those melee guys pounding you. you’re often in for Downed – Rally marathon. Which is fine, as you don’t always die.

The setup I’d use depends on your level. but here are some overall pointers.
It’s based mostly around boons. There’s just something with seeing all that stuff on your UI that just appeals to me. It also adds in alittle damage and alittle protection to offset the squishyness and relatively poor damage of the elementalist. Keep in mind, it’s still rather poor.
You’ll also have to switch between attunments alot. But this is something you have to do regardless if you’re gonna play elementalist on a decent level. Helps to rebind the keys to something easier and faster to reach. Fumbling while playing this way will lead to your death.
Here’s a link to the build: http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.1.0.13.0.0.0.0.0.3.13.11.10.24.0.0.0.4.6.0.16.0.0.35.0.0.48.0.0.65.69.0.20.10.10.10.20

Weapons: Dual Daggers

Healing Signet: Signet of Restoration. I find the passive healing of this to be rather nice for leveling. In this build I get hit rarely and that passive healing takes care of most of it before I am hit again. There is a stronger heal, which also gives a boon based on your attunment, but I don’t find it as good as this passive heal for PvE.

Signet 1: Signet of Air, just got this for the passive movement increase as I hate running slow when out of combat. Could substitute this with pretty much any other skill. Arcane Shield is quite nice for that extra survivability when you’re in a bind, the Firestorm is also great(somehow not present on that site), especially when you’re doing an event and there’s alot of mobs, which gives you a few hits on more mobs causing you to get more loot. It’s also rather nice for when you’ve pulled a few mobs and can kite em around in the relatively small AoE circle this provides. Arcane wave is purely straight up point blank AoE around you. I don’t use it much as I prefer the Firestorm for it’s AoE damage instead, altough it has a higher cooldown. You can use anything you want in this slot however.

Signet 2: Armor of Earth, this is a Cantrip, as you can see by the traits we get boons from using cantrips. Armor of earth itself also grant boons. Stability which makes you immune to CC effects, and protection which decreases your damage taken by 33%. Both of these lasts 8 seconds and Armor of earth is on a 90 second timer, use the skill wisely.

Signet 3: Lightning Flash. This is a teleport. While in itself not so good damage wise, it offers 3 things. 1. It’s a cantrip which in turn gives us boons from the traits we’ve picked. 2, it offers some mobility when you have to get the heck out of there. and 3. It can be used while charging Churning Earth. Churning earth has a rather large cast time and mobs will pummel you while charging. However, first. Knock the enemies down with the knockdown thingy I can’t remember the name of, it’s on 4 (earth attunment ofcourse), then start casting Churning Earth, when the mobs get up use Lightning Flash to teleport away (not too far), The mobs should now chase you but wouldn’t be able to catch up before Churning Earth is done casting, which leads to massive damage.

Elite Signet: Elementalists have a rather crappy selection of elite signets. I quite like the Glyph of Elementals which summons an Elemental depending on your attunment, most notably the Elemental you get in Water attunment which heals. Elite skills also vary with race so might be that your race has something better you could put in it. Play around with it abit if you can and see if you can find one you like.

Traits.
I believe the tooltips are quite self explanatory. I’ll point out a few things though.
Arcane Power: Windborne dagger which gives you 15% more movement speed with daggers (Again, I like this because of the shoddy out of combat run speed) can be substituted with something else if run speed isn’t something you’re concerned with, Renewing Stamina might be nice if you dodge alot. I don’t really have the need to.
Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding, these add boons when applying an Aura, with daggers you got two auras, one in Water attunment and one in Air attunment. I got those two on “auto attack” which means they trigger as soon as I drop into that attunment and keep triggering once they go off cooldown (if still in that attunment)
They’re also nice when you want to travel faster, as Zephyr’s Boon adds swiftness when applying an aura. You can keep this buff going indefinetly by switching back and forth.

As for gear. I’m ofcourse level 80. But I’ve got Power/Precision/Critical Damage in my armor pieces and Power/Vitality/Critical Damage in my Jewelry. But anything really will do, it doesn’t focus much on one thing or another, but I like crits so that’s what I went for.
Still fiddling around with Runes at the moment though. But Vitality and/or Toughness wouldn’t be a bad bet considering how squishy elementalists are, but not necessary unless you get into a bind.

For Sigils I like Sigil of Battle, which gives might when you switch weapons. (Attunments count as weapon swaps). For the 2nd one I’m still undecided and will have to test out a few I got my eye on at the moment. Currently running with Sigil of Luck, which gives magic find when you kill something. But that’s not really usefull in a combat setting.

Anyways. beeing low level you obviously can’t get all of these trait points yet.
I can help you choose a few things to start with, but then I’m gonna need to know your level.

(Had to put this in two posts, was appearently way too long)

Just build as you go. It isn’t expensive to change traits so just keep a few of the weapons handy so you can try them when you feel like changing it up. I have experimented a LOT and I still have no idea what I want to do. Good luck. Maybe before you are high level we will have some kind of buff that makes late game more enjoyable.

MystiQ.9648:

Traits.
I believe the tooltips are quite self explanatory. I’ll point out a few things though.
Arcane Power: Windborne dagger which gives you 15% more movement speed with daggers (Again, I like this because of the shoddy out of combat run speed) can be substituted with something else if run speed isn’t something you’re concerned with, Renewing Stamina might be nice if you dodge alot. I don’t really have the need to.
Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding, these add boons when applying an Aura, with daggers you got two auras, one in Water attunment and one in Air attunment. I got those two on “auto attack” which means they trigger as soon as I drop into that attunment and keep triggering once they go off cooldown (if still in that attunment)
They’re also nice when you want to travel faster, as Zephyr’s Boon adds swiftness when applying an aura. You can keep this buff going indefinetly by switching back and forth.

As for gear. I’m ofcourse level 80. But I’ve got Power/Precision/Critical Damage in my armor pieces and Power/Vitality/Critical Damage in my Jewelry. But anything really will do, it doesn’t focus much on one thing or another, but I like crits so that’s what I went for.
Still fiddling around with Runes at the moment though. But Vitality and/or Toughness wouldn’t be a bad bet considering how squishy elementalists are, but not necessary unless you get into a bind.

For Sigils I like Sigil of Battle, which gives might when you switch weapons. (Attunments count as weapon swaps). For the 2nd one I’m still undecided and will have to test out a few I got my eye on at the moment. Currently running with Sigil of Luck, which gives magic find when you kill something. But that’s not really usefull in a combat setting.

Anyways. beeing low level you obviously can’t get all of these trait points yet.
I can help you choose a few things to start with, but then I’m gonna need to know your level.

(Had to put this in two posts, was appearently way too long)

You mean, the weapon switching sigils actually do something for elementalists??!!!!!!!!

mind = blown. I wish that was in the description. Though I guess I have come to expect incredibly bad descriptions in GW2.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

MystiQ.9648:

Traits.
I believe the tooltips are quite self explanatory. I’ll point out a few things though.
Arcane Power: Windborne dagger which gives you 15% more movement speed with daggers (Again, I like this because of the shoddy out of combat run speed) can be substituted with something else if run speed isn’t something you’re concerned with, Renewing Stamina might be nice if you dodge alot. I don’t really have the need to.
Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding, these add boons when applying an Aura, with daggers you got two auras, one in Water attunment and one in Air attunment. I got those two on “auto attack” which means they trigger as soon as I drop into that attunment and keep triggering once they go off cooldown (if still in that attunment)
They’re also nice when you want to travel faster, as Zephyr’s Boon adds swiftness when applying an aura. You can keep this buff going indefinetly by switching back and forth.

As for gear. I’m ofcourse level 80. But I’ve got Power/Precision/Critical Damage in my armor pieces and Power/Vitality/Critical Damage in my Jewelry. But anything really will do, it doesn’t focus much on one thing or another, but I like crits so that’s what I went for.
Still fiddling around with Runes at the moment though. But Vitality and/or Toughness wouldn’t be a bad bet considering how squishy elementalists are, but not necessary unless you get into a bind.

For Sigils I like Sigil of Battle, which gives might when you switch weapons. (Attunments count as weapon swaps). For the 2nd one I’m still undecided and will have to test out a few I got my eye on at the moment. Currently running with Sigil of Luck, which gives magic find when you kill something. But that’s not really usefull in a combat setting.

Anyways. beeing low level you obviously can’t get all of these trait points yet.
I can help you choose a few things to start with, but then I’m gonna need to know your level.

(Had to put this in two posts, was appearently way too long)

You mean, the weapon switching sigils actually do something for elementalists??!!!!!!!!

mind = blown. I wish that was in the description. Though I guess I have come to expect incredibly bad descriptions in GW2.

Wow, I have never tested this and assumed Engineers and Elementalists were just sol when it came to these sigils. I’ll have to test this, and see if there’s some way to get it to work on engineers, I wonder if it works on conjure weapons too? And maybe tomes or anything that changes your weapons bar. I have a new task for tomorrow.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

MystiQ.9648:

Traits.
I believe the tooltips are quite self explanatory. I’ll point out a few things though.
Arcane Power: Windborne dagger which gives you 15% more movement speed with daggers (Again, I like this because of the shoddy out of combat run speed) can be substituted with something else if run speed isn’t something you’re concerned with, Renewing Stamina might be nice if you dodge alot. I don’t really have the need to.
Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding, these add boons when applying an Aura, with daggers you got two auras, one in Water attunment and one in Air attunment. I got those two on “auto attack” which means they trigger as soon as I drop into that attunment and keep triggering once they go off cooldown (if still in that attunment)
They’re also nice when you want to travel faster, as Zephyr’s Boon adds swiftness when applying an aura. You can keep this buff going indefinetly by switching back and forth.

As for gear. I’m ofcourse level 80. But I’ve got Power/Precision/Critical Damage in my armor pieces and Power/Vitality/Critical Damage in my Jewelry. But anything really will do, it doesn’t focus much on one thing or another, but I like crits so that’s what I went for.
Still fiddling around with Runes at the moment though. But Vitality and/or Toughness wouldn’t be a bad bet considering how squishy elementalists are, but not necessary unless you get into a bind.

For Sigils I like Sigil of Battle, which gives might when you switch weapons. (Attunments count as weapon swaps). For the 2nd one I’m still undecided and will have to test out a few I got my eye on at the moment. Currently running with Sigil of Luck, which gives magic find when you kill something. But that’s not really usefull in a combat setting.

Anyways. beeing low level you obviously can’t get all of these trait points yet.
I can help you choose a few things to start with, but then I’m gonna need to know your level.

(Had to put this in two posts, was appearently way too long)

You mean, the weapon switching sigils actually do something for elementalists??!!!!!!!!

mind = blown. I wish that was in the description. Though I guess I have come to expect incredibly bad descriptions in GW2.

It used to atleast. To tell you the truth, I haven’t checked if it’s intentional or it it even works anymore for the last couple of weeks. I kinda started doubting when writing, but I wasn’t ingame to actually check.

I ran ingame to check now to be absolutely sure, and yes, it does work. It does have a cooldown however, so you can’t just keep changing attunments to stack it up. Not sure what that Cooldown is.

EDIT: without timing, the cooldown is atleast shorter than the duration, so in theory, you can pretty much keep stacking this aslong as you never leave combat for too long.

Guys this was GREAT advice and I am having moments where i am actually learning the synergy between changing attunements as to what spells work well with each other. Thanks for the quick responses and help and time. Great community here and will be letting you know how I get along. Level 17 as of right now and using scepter/dagger or D/D and its great. I keep a staff for some purposes but mostly running in with some air then changing to earth so on to keep stuns up and dmg going. Again I am sure alot of newbies to ele will appreciate this. I did!

Mystiq out of curiosity what did you bind your element changes to? Also I am level 17 and putting alot of points into air for the crit and precision and it works well so far but I have points in fire to for power. After 20 I will probably do what shockwave said and go into arcane more and just change as I see needed as I am playing.

Lvl 17 eh, my that’s low.
Just a tip if you intend to follow my dagger writeup (ofcourse you’re free to make changes).
The Cantrips at that low level isn’t really necessary, altough Lightning Flash is always usefull for the mobility. Glyph of Storms and Sigil of Fire are good contenders while leveling,
As such, I’d leave the traits that gives boons from cantrips to last.
I’d start with getting Arcana to 10, Air to 10, Earth to 10 and Fire to 15. Then Arcana to 15, Water to 10, Fire to 20 and lastly Arcana to 20. Which should give you the most efficiency until you can get everything out of the Cantrips. Arcana is a must for Attunment switching, it also increases the duration of your boons, which that build was all about.

salameri.3768:

Mystiq out of curiosity what did you bind your element changes to? Also I am level 17 and putting alot of points into air for the crit and precision and it works well so far but I have points in fire to for power. After 20 I will probably do what shockwave said and go into arcane more and just change as I see needed as I am playing.

I got a Razer Naga mouse, so I’ve got my attunments bound to 1, 3, 4 and 6 on that.
Unless you got one of those I see no other option that to fiddle around with bindings on the keyboard in one way or another. For instance rebinding attunments to 1 through 4 and attacks to other keys which are in close proximity like R, T, F etc. Some people use the Q and E buttons for attacks instead of the usual default movement.
I also got a Logitech G-series keyboard so I got 3 extra buttons in close proximity to my pinky finger. As an Elementalist, alot of buttons really are a thing of beauty, and in my opinion a must.

There’s already a lot of very informative posts in this thread, so I’m going to keep it short .

My advice to you is to try out all the weapon sets first and see which one tickles you fancy. Then stick with that set until you feel absolutely comfortable with it. I can tell you that absolutely every combination is viable if you know how to play it effectively.

Play style is also very different depending on your weapon choice. Staff vs double dagger is pretty much night and day. Pick one that you like!

Attunement dancing is the key! Traits that synergize with attunement swaps are good to look for.