Guild Wars 2

I don’t always play alone, but I like to have the option. With my reaper I have solo’ed some story mode dungeons, champions, and even some group events. I wanted to try out ele so I started building one that leans towards a dps. It is pretty fun so far but daaaaayum this build is squishy. I find myself getting downed by enemies that would normally be easy with my reaper.

Is a solo dps ele even viable? If so, how? Or should i just start investing in tankier gear?

yes, but the class has 0 built in defense, so you need to take some defensive traits and/or utilities

People do solo dungeon-record with ele all the time. You can summon earth golem for tanking enemies. It’s not as good as necro’s minion to the degree that necro can solo hard hero points but earth golem is good enough to solo dungeons and fractals.

Currently running with this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWhcMoshNOwwB0RM0AY0RoG8DkAZAYCMpgWwLA-TRBBwAAeQAnVCiT9nAXQAs7PK/AA-e

Is there anything i should change for better sustain, while maintaining dps?

If you’re going to run staff, I’d definitely take fire over air. Staff doesn’t do much damage outside of fire attunement, and the faster cooldowns and increased lava font duration is a huge boost to fire’s damage

also take tempest if you have heart of thorns

you should consider replacing one of your skills through gkyphe of storms, its one of the best skill an ele has.

glyph of storms in earth is indeed really nice

solo is very viable in PVE, just switch to earth when things get tight and use your cc and heals to control the fight – a lot of fun.

Before HoT was released, i was reading that Arcane is a better choice for soloing (Vigor on crit and an extra invulnerability frame are a pretty big deal), unless of course you have access to Tempest.
I ’d try something like this Link

I’ve been trying to work out exactly this – how to survive reliably on your own in HoT maps when out hunting down the mastery points etc!

Assuming you have Tempest, I have found this works well:

Dagger / Warhorn fresh air
Air: Zephyr’s Boon, Aeromancer’s Training, Fresh Air
Earth: Elemental Shielding, Geomancer’s Training, Diamond Skin
Tempest: Unstable Conduit, Invigorating Torrents, Imbued Melodies.

Skills are Wash the pain away, Feel the Burn, Aftershock, Flash-freeze, Glyph of elementals.

This is really decent for both DPS and survival. It is all geared towards applying auras. You get auras passively as well as from overloads, and your 3 shouts all apply an aura as well. Each aura grants Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness and Fury – in my case this means in a typical fight I have these up permanently meaning 85% crit chance and 40% damage reduction.

Diamond Skin also passively removes conditions and you’ve got some resistance to crippled etc so you’re less likely to get bogged down. All the boons stack in duration loads, and Imbued Melodies gives you an extra 20% duration.

If you want to use Staff, I’d use exactly the same build, just swap Air for Fire and use Burning Precision, Pyromancer’s Training and Persisting Flames.

Hope that helps!

tomwcb.9713:

I’ve been trying to work out exactly this – how to survive reliably on your own in HoT maps when out hunting down the mastery points etc!

Assuming you have Tempest, I have found this works well:

Dagger / Warhorn fresh air
Air: Zephyr’s Boon, Aeromancer’s Training, Fresh Air
Earth: Elemental Shielding, Geomancer’s Training, Diamond Skin
Tempest: Unstable Conduit, Invigorating Torrents, Imbued Melodies.

Skills are Wash the pain away, Feel the Burn, Aftershock, Flash-freeze, Glyph of elementals.

This is really decent for both DPS and survival. It is all geared towards applying auras. You get auras passively as well as from overloads, and your 3 shouts all apply an aura as well. Each aura grants Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness and Fury – in my case this means in a typical fight I have these up permanently meaning 85% crit chance and 40% damage reduction.

Diamond Skin also passively removes conditions and you’ve got some resistance to crippled etc so you’re less likely to get bogged down. All the boons stack in duration loads, and Imbued Melodies gives you an extra 20% duration.

If you want to use Staff, I’d use exactly the same build, just swap Air for Fire and use Burning Precision, Pyromancer’s Training and Persisting Flames.

Hope that helps!

Any suggestions for someone without Tempest going through HoT? My 13k HP pool just evaporates when any enemy that has a ranged attack sees me
It’s not so much small groups of tough enemies or single champs…but when I get swarmed my ele just gets steamrolled like no other class (except maybe thief).

several options for that:

use dagger/focus, as that gives you 3 anti-projectile skills
use staff at max range and just range them back
build more than a 13k health pool
die repeatedly until you “git gud”
trait water and protection and maybe some healing power to shrug off attacks

tomwcb.9713:

I’ve been trying to work out exactly this – how to survive reliably on your own in HoT maps when out hunting down the mastery points etc!

Assuming you have Tempest, I have found this works well:

Dagger / Warhorn fresh air
Air: Zephyr’s Boon, Aeromancer’s Training, Fresh Air
Earth: Elemental Shielding, Geomancer’s Training, Diamond Skin
Tempest: Unstable Conduit, Invigorating Torrents, Imbued Melodies.

Skills are Wash the pain away, Feel the Burn, Aftershock, Flash-freeze, Glyph of elementals.

This is really decent for both DPS and survival. It is all geared towards applying auras. You get auras passively as well as from overloads, and your 3 shouts all apply an aura as well. Each aura grants Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness and Fury – in my case this means in a typical fight I have these up permanently meaning 85% crit chance and 40% damage reduction.

Diamond Skin also passively removes conditions and you’ve got some resistance to crippled etc so you’re less likely to get bogged down. All the boons stack in duration loads, and Imbued Melodies gives you an extra 20% duration.

If you want to use Staff, I’d use exactly the same build, just swap Air for Fire and use Burning Precision, Pyromancer’s Training and Persisting Flames.

Hope that helps!

Interesting… with a full set of trooper runes, this sounds like it would be a pretty tanky build. I think ill give it a try when i unlock tempest. thanks

For Solo i allways play fresh air Dagger/X with Arcane, Air and Tempest.
In some dungeons i swap Arcane out for Water or Earth. I feel that its not as simple as on other classes. you have to adapt alot for some situations. If you struggle you can go Dager/Focus. Its much more tanky.
I run full Zerker with Strange for solo. Scolar for Team.
In the Maguma Maps the small raptors are easy with overload Air. Focus is extrem stron against all these frogs with range.