Guild Wars 2

I’ve been level 80 for about a month now and feel I’ve come on a long way from where I was in that I’ve only really started to learn how to control my Ele since I’ve been level 80. I now have full Exotic Zerker gears with Superior Runes of the Scholar, I’ve got the Nightmare Court Scepter and the CoF Focus and I’m really enjoying my experience in GW2. I’m a member of a very active and friendly guild and I’ve been completely taken away from map exploration because everytime I log on now I’m asked to come to some sort of boss like Jormag, Fire Ele, etc or do Dungeons/Fractals instead. Basically, I feel like I’m really starting to learn what GW2 is all about.

My issue is my build is still a big question mark for me. I think I’ve tried a lot of different ones and still can’t work out the best for my needs. I used to enjoy the D/F Fresh air build in PVE but it doesn’t seem to be as recommended for Dungeon use and there’s obviously the issue with having to get close enough to sustain damage without being 1-hit.

I then used the Staff build a bit while I was doing a lot of Arbor as I found it handy to keep away from the dreaded red circles from the Wurms while still maintaining good AoE and DPS. It was quite weak the rest of the time though.

Now I’ve finally landed on Scepter/Focus+LH or Scepter/Dagger+LH depending on what I’m doing. I like this build as I’ve got used to the Might rotations so I feel like I’m contributing to the party more than I was before. It also offers great DPS when I’m using the Lightning Hammer and has good Burst with Dragons Tooth, etc. This is fine for bosses or ‘easier’ elite mobs but I find it really awkward to use if I’m not able to sustain my LH conjures. I’ve followed the stickied DPS build in this forum and watched the videos and the build is great for practising on an invulnerable PVP golem but in reality I have never been in a situation where I’ve been able to comfortably stack Might, drop the hammer, do 5 × 3 AA rotations, fire attune, 3 × 3 more AA rotations, drop hammer, re-stack might and still be able to pick up my other hammer. At this point I’ve normally either died from concentrating too much on my Might stacks or my hammer use, my hammers been stolen or I’ve been trying to dodge/evade too much that I haven’t been able to keep the perfect rotation as I’ve been having to remove conditions, heal, drop hammer to use defensive focus skills, etc so a lot of the time I’m left using whatever Scepter skills I can or if a boss is too hard to get up close to I’ll just be using my Air Scepter skills to keep some ok DPS on him while blinding.

So after my rant, what I’m basically trying to get at is what build offers decent sustained DPS without having to rely on perfect combos and rotations because let’s face it, it’s not always possible to get face-to-face with a champion and be able to auto-attack it with a hammer care-free.

Am I playing the class bad? Do I just need more practice? I do try to change weapons throughout a dungeon if I have to (protecting Mag on CoF P2 comes to mind as a staff seems to be pretty crucial for this for AoE and slowing the assassins while controlling the trash mobs). I’d like to play the Fresh Air Build more but it’s not always practical if I need some range and it’s not like I can just swap my traits at the drop of a hat.

Any help would be much appreciated. I’m happy to still use Scepter/Focus but I just feel a bit weak when I’m not in a perfect situation for stacking Might + using a hammer perfectly.

For info, I’m currently using the General DPS build for Scepter/Focus + LH in the following guide: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first

General DPS build
25 (II-V) / 10 (VI) / 10 (VI) / 25 (IV-VI) / 0

I know the standard slot skills for this build are Arcane Brilliance – Lightning Hammer – Arcane Wave – Signet of Fire – Fiery Greatsword. Instead, maybe try Ether Renewal for a heal if you need condi cleanse, and take Arcane Shield instead of Signet of Fire. If your party isn’t LoSing enemies, you can also take Glyph of Elementals instead of Fiery Greatsword and hope that your earth elemental holds aggro so that you can position yourself out of cleave range. And while I’m loathe to suggest this because I love Arcane Wave, you can take Armor or Earth for protection if your group isn’t already providing it, Mist Form (though you’ll drop your conjure), or Lightning Flash.

Back on the subject of positioning – when you aren’t LoSing things, try to stand at their back, near max melee range for hammer and at that full 300 range when using D/F. You can’t dodge all of a boss’s attacks in prolonged battles, so smart positioning helps. And learning where to stand and what to dodge (and when to dodge it) just comes with practice.

It also sounds like you’re concentrating too much on your rotation. I know it’s super, super boring, but practicing on the golems or vet giants in Cursed Shore is useful. Try to get to a comfort level with your rotation such that you aren’t looking at your cooldowns or hunting for keys to press. Don’t fret if you’re falling behind on “the” rotation because you’re interrupting it with dodges, heals, and repositioning yourself – it’s more to show what you should be striving toward, not what every ele everywhere is expected to pull off in every situation.

Maybe even swap up your keybinds – I use ESDF for movement and the keys near it for my 6-0 skills because my little hands just can’t stretch that far! So if there’s something you’re doing that makes you think, “This key is hard for me to accurately press with everything else going on,” then maybe think of giving that skill a different home.

Another thing that definitely makes it harder for eles to thrive is indeed poor partymates. There really isn’t anything you can do to prevent others from stealing your hammers other than putting them slightly away from the group – and even then that’s far from foolproof. On top of that, a low DPS group means you’ll run out of dodges, and if the other party members aren’t using their skills to help protect the party, then you may very well die with a scepter-hammer setup. So I highly doubt it’s all your fault that you’re not performing as well as you’d like. Maybe use an energy sigil over one of your DPS sigils to give yourself a few more dodges.

The reason why I recommend scepter-hammer over dagger/focus for general dungeoning is because in a solid group, scepter-hammer will bring the most to the table and s/d+hammer is the highest DPS. If pugging or bringing inexperienced players through a dungeon, feel free to swap to dagger-focus – chances are you’ll fight light and water fields to get your fire field down anyway. Once the feature patch hits, it will be easy to swap builds when out of combat, so you’ll be able to adjust after one or two encounters in the dungeon.

keep in mind that if you go all the way into the S/X + LH build, then you are pretty much the squishiest of them all. Probably, one of the harder build to stay alive, and the more complicated to reach your top DPS. So don’t feel bad about it. Don’t think that any pure S/X + LH Ele can be on top of their Art all the time. I never completed a dungeon path where i didn’t down, screw up my might stacking rotation, lost sight of my second hammer, didn’t put my FGS at the right moment or rush at the wrong side away from the boss. Hopefully, I rarely do more than 1 of those, not all at the same time. You simply need more practice, a lot more practice. I’ve been playing my final S/X + LH ele for about 3 months now, and I still have a lot more job to put on her. Might rotation should become automatic, you should check every single encounter and understand what down you (what specific attack) and how to counter it with the little defence you have (mainly by good positioning).

D/F isn’t a bad build for dungeons either, so if you like that, run with it.

My other tip is to specifically tell people at the start of the run, “Please pick up ice bows and fgs, but don’t pick up LH!” And be sure to drop the LH in a good spot— if you drop it on top of your melee stack, people will pick it up by accident since the “loot” key is the same as the “pick up” key.

Before my guild leader comes here and bashe me in the head for promoting a ‘bad DPS’ build like D/F Fresh Air (30/30/10/0/0), let me emphasize that much of an enjoyable experience playing as an ele in dungeons depend on the group composition and their competence. To put it simple;

1. If your group is a pre-made, optimized for speed run, you should have known that 1 ele with Persisting Flame is always required and the second ele can go min-maxing for either LH or FGS (25/10/10/25/0 or 10/25/10/25/0). If you love the min-maxing builds for damage, yet cannot survive long in the fight, look for a group (or a speedrun guild) that allows you to play the build.

2. If everyone knows what they do, yet your group is not optimized for a dungeon and you’re just in for a casual fast run, go identify the problem with the group composition. Does the dungeon require Aegis? Reflection? Condi cleanse? Blind? Interruption (CC)? And vice versa, is your group capable of pulling out these resources? More importantly, can you actively mitigate the damage instead of relying on others? Case in point:

• a. You’re in the Nightmare Vine room and the guard doesn’t provide enough stability, bring LH to blind the vines to prevent knock back.
• b. You’re in the lazer trap room in COE and you don’t have a guard for reflection. Either use Sand Storm or LH to blind the golems when they are lined of sight. You don’t need to trait for more charges of LH. It’s not the damage, it’s the utility which matters.

3. You’re using Pug roulette. Sometimes they are good, most of the times, they push you over the edge. All of the min maxing builds lose their efficiency here. My advice is to pick a trait setup which offers a variety of builds with a reasonably good damage, so you can pick up a focus when you need more defense or a staff for more crowd control. So either 30/30/10/0/0 or 30/10/10/20/0 works.

tl;dr: a good ele is not limited by one best build. He is limited by the group he plays with. Factoring the group composition and competence in mind, it’s easy to pinpoint the problems and adapt.

Thanks for the input guys, I played around a little bit more last night and I do enjoy the S/D + LH build but I think you’re right in maybe it’s the group around me that is making it less effective perhaps. I’ve never really been in a pure DPS dungeon group before and I do notice I run out of dodges and defence skills quite quickly when stacking, etc.

I’ll keep having a play around with some traits and skill slots especially after this patch and see what I’m most comfortable with. A lot of the time I dungeon run with Guildies but they’re not necessarily ‘optimised’ builds so we still sometimes struggle.

I’ll keep working on my rotations till they’re like second nature though One thought, is it beneficial for someone to pick up my other LH once I’ve stacked might and if we’re stacking? That way things might die before I need the second hammer and therefore ‘more’ survivability. Or does that just screw our rotations up completely?

Staff build with lava is still best dps build in game, and most simple to use (some will say most boring). Most time you use just two skills fire 1 and 2, and blasts when of CD.
Yes, you will provide less might then S/D with LH, but on other side you have fire field 100% up, and if some of your party member sometimes blast in that fire field that should be more then enough with yours blasts.

Grimezy.5679:

Thanks for the input guys, I played around a little bit more last night and I do enjoy the S/D + LH build but I think you’re right in maybe it’s the group around me that is making it less effective perhaps. I’ve never really been in a pure DPS dungeon group before and I do notice I run out of dodges and defence skills quite quickly when stacking, etc.

I’ll keep having a play around with some traits and skill slots especially after this patch and see what I’m most comfortable with. A lot of the time I dungeon run with Guildies but they’re not necessarily ‘optimised’ builds so we still sometimes struggle.

I’ll keep working on my rotations till they’re like second nature though One thought, is it beneficial for someone to pick up my other LH once I’ve stacked might and if we’re stacking? That way things might die before I need the second hammer and therefore ‘more’ survivability. Or does that just screw our rotations up completely?

If not everyone is optimized, the strat varies too much. Does it mean that you guys don’t even stack? I don’t know to what extent the gameplay goes with you and your guildies.

For instance, when you try to fgs rush Leurent in TA, you can imagine this done with a guard casting Hallowed Ground and Wall of Reflect. The warrior drops banners. 2 Eles, 1 Thief and the Guard takes the FGS.

But if you just try to double FGS Leurent (1 Ele only in the group), he won’t be downed fast enough and it’s difficult for you to try and kill him even with LH. The Staff or D/F could be the better choice here.

And for the last para, especially if you’re a Staff Ele, dropping LH could help also for the utility such as when you need to knock an enemy into a wall.

It’s possible for everyone to pick up hammer but it depends on the situation and it depends on whether everybody’s geared up and optimized or not. Otherwise, you’ll find that you won’t have enough sustain DPS.

Grimezy.5679:

One thought, is it beneficial for someone to pick up my other LH once I’ve stacked might and if we’re stacking? That way things might die before I need the second hammer and therefore ‘more’ survivability. Or does that just screw our rotations up completely?

It depend on two things.
1) Will you need your second LH? It depend on each fight. I don’t want someone taking my second LH at the CoE Golem, but I really don’t mind if they took it at the CoE Path 3 Destroyer. It depend on the length of the fight, for exemple in a fast fight, you probably won’t use LH. But it also depend on what your strategy for that fight. The best is to allow only some of your guildmates to take the LH since over time they will know when they can and when they can’t take it.
2) It also depend on which profession pick it up. Usually, a warrior is better with their own weapons to put vulnerability and a good dmg rotation. But the LH can boost the dmg of a Thief or a Guardian. The best character to use an Conjure weapons is a character with a lot of damage modifier. And obviously a direct damage character.

Generally thieves are “acceptable” to pick up an LH because they do more damage with it than you would (if they have the trait which provides 10% damage with bundles). Of course, they should only do so if the fight is expected to be short enough that you don’t need it for the second set of rotations.