Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, this is my first post on the forum. Before saying anything, please be less judgmental of my skills and overall battle tactics, I’m only a novice and hopefully will receive some positive advices.

I would like to share how I battle against a group of mobs (2-3) of my level and receive a feedback if I’m doing something wrong. I use staff, just because it keeps dropping from chests and main story quests…

http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/elementalist#0.0-2.2.3.0.0-5.0.0.0.0 this is a rough build I use when faced with mobs, in a group. The skills 6,7,8 might differ, regarding different situations.

I tend to start in Air: and blast Chain Lightning to grab all the mobs. I then move tem away from me with Gust skill. From there I switch to Fire and set Lava Font on the spot were they used to be (before I used Gust) just in front of me. Lava Font ‘gets heated’ as they step on it, if timed good. Then I fire a few shots of Fireball and dodge backwards with Burning Retreat. As they step on the Burning Retreat line I cast Flame Burst and a few of Fireballs. I use my dodge on cool down when the come too close to me. I then switch to Earth and set a line of Unsteady Ground after I’ve dodged from them. They slow down and the following Eruption usually finishes them off. When I do not have endurance I switch on Arcane Shield to block 3 attacks. I do hit Heal on 6 (Glyph of Elemental Harmony) just before I transfer to Earth, because my endurance is usually on low at that point. I use Arcane power when needed. I dont really switch to Water that often…

Please comment on my tactics and let me know if I’m doing the correct thing. I heard that d/d combo is good as well, yet I can’t get hold of a nice dagger yet, simple no loot of it.

Looking forward for your tips and comments
TY

You seem to do a good job of using all the skills in your arsenal, keep at it!

One thing to consider is to start using Combos in your gameplay. If you go from Earth into Fire then you can stack Area Might by using Eruption → Lava Font. You could even do that twice if you pick up Arcane Wave (which is one of our best utilities overall) instead of Arcane Power and simply use it every time it’s ready to speed up your killing.

Combos are a good way to set yourself apart from other players and the earlier you get used to using them, the better.

Here’s a video that explains Combos:

As for Daggers, simply pick them up when you can afford to grab a pair. It’s good to get used to all the weapon combinations available to us!

You could also drop Static Field after you use Gust, that way they will run straight into it and stun themselves, giving you a bit extra time. Try to place the field so that they immediately stun themselves after getting back up.

Then you could use that time to switch to water, cast Frozen Ground to chill them and really slow them down, followed immediately by Ice Spike, switch to Earth, Unsteady Ground + Shockwave to immobilize followed by Eruption. Always cast Eruption a bit closer to you than Unsteady Ground so that as they approach you they walk right on top of it when it goes off.

After that switch to fire and cast Lava Font on top of Eruption for extra AoE Might – if they are still alive after all that.

Against single mobs the above usually means they will not even touch you, you don’t have to even move if you time things right. Against multiple ones you might want to evade a bit, maybe use Burning retreat after casting Lava Font then follow with a couple of fireballs. You can always switch back to Water and use the two heals you got there, saving your main heal for when you need it. Plus another Ice Spike, it does nice damage.

And of course, you can always drop Meteor Shower on top of yourself.

Switching back to Air and casting Chain Lightning is also a good way to deal with multiple opponents. Chain Lightning does less damage than Fireball against single targets, but if you for example have two targets, one of them will get hit twice.

Another nice trick is to Drop Static Field, the follow up by Earth->Shockwave for vulnerability stacking, immobilize and bleeds + Stoning for Weakness (non critical hits are only 50% damage, essentially when you weaken your target you just placed a 50% damage reduction “shield” on yourself) and more Vulnerability stacks.

Another nice trick, although this works best against bosses in dungeons, is to cast Lava Font on their feet when they’re not moving much and follow up with Shockwave and Stoning for extra burning damage.

So there’s a lot of choices and ways you can do things, just experiment, try using all skills you have and different combinations and see what works best for you.

When I was a lowbie, I picked up fire signet. It boosts your crit chance pretty good (when its off cd) and opening with it is very strong when you’re fighting monsters one by one.

Later on it’s good to drop it, though. Arcane wave is the spell that you want (arcane shield is also worth it)

Anyway, this is how I fight multiple monsters as a staff ele:

1. Start on water attunement:
2. Tag all the monsters you want to kill, make them chase you a little (not too far away or they’ll reset. You can make them chase you in circles forever though)
3. Frozen ground (water 4) (use ice spike – water 2, if you want, too)
4. Switch to fire attunement:
5. Lava font (fire 2)
6. Meteor shower (fire 5, both lava font and meteor aoes a little closer to you, predicting where the monsters are going to run, not on top of them).
7. Fire 3 OR switch to earth or air
(by now most stuff is usually dead for me)
8. If earth: Use earth 2 and then quickly use earth 5.
8.2 If air: Use air 5 and then quickly use air 2 as they get stunned.

Top it off with some autoattacks / arcane wave from PB range and I guarantee that most things will be dead without even touching you.

Careful if they’re ranged though, you’ll have to keep an even greater distance between the monsters and you if you want them to chase you.

There are many variations of this, as you become more skilled with the class you can even start with earth 4 (unsteady ground) after tagging all the monsters you want to kill, then follow up with air 5 into lava font and then water 2 -> water 4 -> arcane wave, etc.

Using arcane wave (Check the tooltip, it says combo finisher: blast) on top of different combo fields (check the tooltip of your weapon skills, like Fire 2, water 3,4,5, air 5), can trigger different effects. Try it out sometime.

Thank you all for your advices. Much appreciated, will def try out all of them