Guild Wars 2

Ok, so I am level 44 on my ele and am dying like hell. I play staff and have so far all my points in Fire and Air. I know that makes me a huge glass cannon, but I change attunements all the time, keep all my defensive and cc skills on cd, dodge, circle strafe and so on.
However, I still die. A lot. Usually because of one of these things – either the mob I am attacking is ranged or can stun/cripple/immobilize me – but that isn’t the main problem; or, and this is the reason of 95% of my deaths, because of dodging or kiting and pulling other mobs who I can’t all cc, and some of them getting to me.
I thought that you were either supposed to go into earth/water and don’t have to kite as much, but do less damage, or go into fire/air and do more damage, but also have to kite more, and I like kiting, so I chose to be a glass cannon – however, how are you supposed to play that way when mobs are so close together and even a single one a) hits like a bulldozer and b) takes sooo long to down?
I have a thief on 80 and I know it only gets harder, so how on earth am I supposed to do that?

I had the same problem for as long as I played with Staff.. It’s horrible, wel, NO, it’s not horrible, it’s just not my style, i just suck with staffs..

Switched to Scepter / Dagger with a 20 10 10 15 skilltree atm and I’m killing stuff fairly easy, even multiple mobs.. I’m currently 65, but on level 58, I have done my story quest up to 62 with this setup.. Make sure you always have the best greens for your level and most importantly : Learn your combo’s, specifically, the combo’s to stack might. It helps a whole lot.

e.g. I start out in Air most of the time —> Air 2, wait till Air 1 (automatically) does the most damage possible, it adds up every tick —> Air 4 to jump in close —> Air 5 to jump back and knock down
Now you’ll want to switch to fire —> Fire 4 (ring & Combofield) —> Fire 2 (Dragons Tooth for might) —> Fire 3 (Phoenix & extra Might)
Switch to Earth asap —> earth 4 (knock down & extra Might) —> Earth 5 (Massive damage and yet an extra stack of Might).
Now you just need to consider the situation, but usually, I bring up Earth 2 for the extra armor and I kit around with Earth 1 until my Air attunement is available again.
Switch back to Air and go in with Air 2 and Air 4.
Now, if needed, you can go back to Fire and cast another ring and another Dragons Tooth to regain some stacks of might, but most of the time, the mobs will be practically down by now..

Important notice : in this playstyle, you cannot get out without loss of HP. Consider your HP while going through this sequence, because you might want to break it off before-time.

I run around with the following Utilities:
- Glyph of Elemental Harmony : Decent heal + Boon on switch of attunement
- Cleansing Fire : to get out of stick situations
- Arcane Shield : My favorite Utility. Blocks all damage for 3 seconds, so you can stay in the routine just that bit longer, pop it right before you go down and heal yourself up with Glyph
- Mist Form (I do switch this out with the Blink Skill and the Earth Shield)
- Glyph of Elementals (I always use the elemental glyph while in Water, for extra healing and slows.. Rarely ever use the other Elementals, if I need to be healing myself in water, it means kitten is in the fan, or I’m in an event and people just need some healing)

Hope this helps

kiting or staying alive problem? put some points into water and get cantrip utility skills (e.g., armor of earth, lightning flash, etc.). Cantrips can allow elementalists to survive better than many other classes (imo, actually more than any other class).

I don’t have a Pve Elementalist (only PvP), but I assume this is your problem?

Staff is a terrible weapon for soloing; everything it has is very slow and most of what it has are ground-target AOEs that are awful for soloing mobs with.

Try Dagger/Dagger or Scepter/Dagger. You get more control and survivability options that way.

Cluisanna.1360:

Ok, so I am level 44 on my ele and am dying like hell. I play staff and have so far all my points in Fire and Air. I know that makes me a huge glass cannon, but I change attunements all the time, keep all my defensive and cc skills on cd, dodge, circle strafe and so on.
However, I still die. A lot. Usually because of one of these things – either the mob I am attacking is ranged or can stun/cripple/immobilize me – but that isn’t the main problem; or, and this is the reason of 95% of my deaths, because of dodging or kiting and pulling other mobs who I can’t all cc, and some of them getting to me.
I thought that you were either supposed to go into earth/water and don’t have to kite as much, but do less damage, or go into fire/air and do more damage, but also have to kite more, and I like kiting, so I chose to be a glass cannon – however, how are you supposed to play that way when mobs are so close together and even a single one a) hits like a bulldozer and b) takes sooo long to down?
I have a thief on 80 and I know it only gets harder, so how on earth am I supposed to do that?

I know people use this line alot for trolling purposes, but I’m being serious – you’re not doing anything wrong, it’s the class that’s broken. :p
Elementalists cannot glass cannon at their current state – simply because we get no “cannon”, regardless of spec. You either go with an even spread (I use 10,10,10,10,30, in pve) or a full tanky/heal build.

Apart from that, check the usual suspects –
Updated gear?
Using all your skills at the right moment?
Biting more than you can chew?
Using staff in solo pve – just don’t…
etc…

D/D, 25 points into Earth, 15 to Water, Pow/Toughness on all your gear, the heal signet with passive regeneration, the one with passive toughness…

…now you can almost survive, if you never use your 7-0 skills except for the passives, and they’re all defensive skills.

Welcome to the Strugglentalist.

I use staff for soloing and it works like a charm, never had a problem with it be it events, story or just random mobs.
Just don´t try to be mr, untouchable…invest a bit in defense, 20-30 points in either water or earth will do, and just soak a few hits. Your damage depends on how well you can keep the mobs in your aoes, sacrifice bit of your hp to do that if need be.
Champions are ofcourse a different story, but if you can´t keep them off of you with all the cc staff has…i really can´t help you.

Few hints,
Take up glyph of storms and use it in earth, a lot. 8 seconds of invulnerability and even more time to nuke.
Arcane shield is awesome too, gives you chance to stop and nuke.
Magnetic shield is awesome against ranged mobs to give you time to nuke em down.
Try doding towards mobs just as they reach melee distance sometimes…it gives surprisingly good results (mob pathing or something…don´t really know)
Don´t needlesly swap around elements for swappings sake, think what you actualy need to use.
Sitting in fire is, contrary to popular belief, pretty darn good choice when you need consistant damage on stationary targets (hitn, glyph of storms).

And most of all, when you kite, don´t kite to survive. Kite so that the mobs stay in your aoes.

What are you doing wrong?

You’re playing an elementalist.

I got my ele to level 60 before deciding to level an alt instead. I made that decision because at level 60, with crafting and loot, I had earned a whopping two gold, while everyone else I knew had at least six to eight by that time. Repair costs and rezzing are just too expensive to play a class where you are guaranteed to die if you make the slightest mistake.

Elementalists are fine, ignore the whiners.

Invest some points into water, and get the trait that cleanses conditions everytime you switch to water. You can now remove those pesky poisons, immobilize, etc.

As someone else said, it’s a little easier to solo with dagger / dagger or scepter than staff. With staff it’s a little more tricky to kite stuff around.

When all else fails, use two earth elemental pets to tank everything and then aoe it down.

As others said, get some points in water, to a) improve healing, and b) add some hitpoints. I used almost solely staff and did just fine. If you pull more then you can handle, run. Use the earth shield, #3, and use your arcane shield. Use stuns/slows…
put Vitality runes on your armour. Get Vitality Runes, and balance out more…as glass cannons are useless when broken. If you don’t have a buddy tanking for you, you don’t have the choice…you have to diversify, and get half your armour and runes/signets in power/precision and the other half in vitality/toughness or vitality/healing. And same with your trait line. Take away some in power or precision and put it in water, for the extra HP.

Umm I seem to be too stupid to chose a reply that best answers my question. How do I do that?!
Anyway, thanks everybody, I guess I am going to put my beloved staff away and invest more points in water/earth (although I absolutely hate the traits there).
Edit: lol NOW the button to chose an answer appeared. Oh well.

you said so yourself: you put everything into fire and air.

the thing is… you have to realize that even with a spec like that, you won’t be dealing as much damage with as staff as other professions would do with their weapons WITHOUT a glass cannon build.

imo, it’s not worth it to try. personally, i recommend dual dagger and max out earth for toughness, but if you’re afraid of its survivability, you can go scepter/dagger in pve as well.

I think the problem is that you are playing an Elementalist. Switch to another profession and you magically stop dying to every trash mob and actually start killing things.

Glyph of Storms
It doesn’t say in the tool tip but the Sandstorm applies blind; that makes you virtually invulnerable during it’s duration and is one of the best defensive skills for PvE.

Staff is annoying when solo. S/D or D/D works better in my experience, no matter what the build you’re running is (I’m currently running all out glass cannon and it works fine in pve, just have to be extra careful).

Staff:
-start with earth skill 2, wait a second go with 4 in front of opponent and then 5,
-switch to water, skill 4 and 2
-switch to air, skill 5
-switch to fire….nuke witj everything you have

remember to use some cantrips to escape like mist form…..
AS soon as you can get the elite skill of elementals…and summon earth elemental if the battle seems too hard….it tanks quite well

this works even on large groups of opponents for a decent amount of time

You should use your ‘Single Attack That Does Massive Damage’!

The Elementalist : What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack. (www.Guildwars2.com)

Staff is aoe/buff/clearing/combo filed bot. Good for groups only, solo sux, has annoying slow and ground casts. I mean PvP.

In PvE it’s playable solo, kite and switch all the time. Don’t take 3 and more mobs.

you can PvE with staff on large group of enemies until you reach 60…
And as long as there are no ranged…

that because you have some crowd control spells that slows them down for few seconds while dealing risibledamage, but then you have time to finish them off and doesn t matter if you are playing against 1 or 4 opponents because all you cast is aoe…

but at higher levels you finish CC spells when opponents are still at 75% HP and then you are stuck in recharging skills and attunements without any tool to reduce damage, while kite is impossibe against opponent that seems on constant swiftness.

But at least you made it to 60 >.>

Staff is not good for playing solo, I tend to use either S/F or S/D for this. Obsidian flesh on the focus has saved me more times than I can count. Ether Renewal is a really good heal whilst channeling it removes conditions, so if you need to get away you wont be crippled or stunned, I would also recommend having either mist form or armour of earth in your utilities. Breaking Stun also removes fear which is great against the dragons. Switch to a Staff for large events such as the dragons, it has better range and reasonable AoE heals. I also always carry a full set of weapons around just in case I fancy a change.

Isila.2574:

Staff is a terrible weapon for soloing; everything it has is very slow and most of what it has are ground-target AOEs that are awful for soloing mobs with.

HuntsForge.3260:

Staff is not good for playing solo

Um, just no. Staff leveling is very simple and powerful, I leveled from 5 (or whatever ultra low level I got my first staff) all the way to 80 using nothing but that weapon.

Solo mobs or packs, they all die in seconds.

Single mob:
Start in earth – cast eruption since it doesn’t pull the mob until it pops, you can then cast shockwave.
Swap to fire – drop lava font, cast flame burst, then fireball.
Mob will be dead before it can get to you.

More than one mob (less than 5):
Start in earth – cast eruption.
Swap to water cast frozen ground
Swap to fire cast lava font, flame burst then fireball.

More than 5:
Start in earth – cast eruption
Swap to water cast frozen ground
Swap to fire cast meteor shower, lava font, flame burst, fireball.

Everything is dead. Nothing about leveling staff is hard or terrible, unless you find attunement swapping to be complicated (which most elementalists do).

Sharpe.1485:

I know people use this line alot for trolling purposes, but I’m being serious – you’re not doing anything wrong, it’s the class that’s broken. :p
Elementalists cannot glass cannon at their current state – simply because we get no “cannon”, regardless of spec. You either go with an even spread (I use 10,10,10,10,30, in pve) or a full tanky/heal build.

Apart from that, check the usual suspects –
Updated gear?
Using all your skills at the right moment?
Biting more than you can chew?
Using staff in solo pve – just don’t…
etc…

I’m using 30/10/0/0/30 as a staff. Going full carrion gear. I don’t die. There’s nothing wrong with staff elementalists when you learn attunement swapping and understand the concept of dodging.

You’re not alone. I find being a ele rather… painful unless you pump specs in survivability. which takes points away from your already miserable dps. I find this class not very fun in general which is a pity since ele was my main in GW.

Despite the “gut feeling”, it’s much safer PvE soloing with “melee” daggers than “mage” staff.

Also, elementalist is the mage without damage and long crowd control nor sheep / polymorph (mesmers got it), that is, it’s not a mage.
Call it the “feral druid” of GW2 (pre-buff feral druid that is, when they had broken spec and dealt less damage in feral form than in healer form), call it “monk” as it does everything in a very mediocre way with some crowd control sweetener on top of it.

If you play ele like you’d play a mage, you’ll die. And die more. Expecially in PvP. Oh well, you can stand far, far in the back and spam meteor shower. I have yet to die to it once in my whole WvWvW carer though, so it’s not like you immediately become very useful with it.

Also, if your connection is not excellent, if you are not a well above average player, just reroll. You’ll save on e-rage and frustration.
One minute on a warrior / ranger / thief / guardian will make you feel beyond godlike and easy mode.
Even playing necro will still yield more damage, and necros are “the other UP class in GW2”.

Sojou, that’s all great, but my experience is that S/D takes care of mobs faster, because you don’t even need to swap attunements. 4 → Arcane wave → 2 → 3 takes care of pretty much anything you will ever run into, whether it’s a solo mob or 5 mobs, and the stacks of might you just filled will make short work of the next group you run into, whatever you choose to do with them. After that cooldowns are up and it’s free fire again.

With staff you kinda need to swap around to kill fast, since staff in fire is more about sustained DPS than burst, while sceptre brings quite a lot of burst in fire alone.

Truga.5897:

Sojou, that’s all great, but my experience is that S/D takes care of mobs faster, because you don’t even need to swap attunements. 4 -> Arcane wave -> 2 -> 3 takes care of pretty much anything you will ever run into, whether it’s a solo mob or 5 mobs, and the stacks of might you just filled will make short work of the next group you run into, whatever you choose to do with them. After that cooldowns are up and it’s free fire again.

With staff you kinda need to swap around to kill fast, since staff in fire is more about sustained DPS than burst, while sceptre brings quite a lot of burst in fire alone.

Not playing with all your attunements while wielding S/D is like playing a warrior with dual Cotton Buds, I’m sorry, but this will not work…

Works fine for me, both with S/D and D/D. That said, I do use a full berserker set with a 30/20/0/0/20 build, so things generally die before I even throw down all the fire skills, therefore having no reason to swap out of fire. If there’s no veterans/champions, changing attunement isn’t needed, and depending on your trait setup often not even desired in simple pve.

Conjure Lightning Hammer…

Um, just no. Staff leveling is very simple and powerful, I leveled from 5 (or whatever ultra low level I got my first staff) all the way to 80 using nothing but that weapon.

Solo mobs or packs, they all die in seconds.

Single mob:
Start in earth – cast eruption since it doesn’t pull the mob until it pops, you can then cast shockwave.
Swap to fire – drop lava font, cast flame burst, then fireball.
Mob will be dead before it can get to you.

^this. I don’t understand the staff hate. Personally, I love playing as D/D, but it’s not as if Staff is weak. You can kill any single mob before it even hits you once, period.

Hell, I can kill Veteran mobs with a staff without being hit once (provided they are not ranged, if they are, use the earth elemental, profit):
Earth —> #2, #5, #4
Fire --> #2, #3, chuck a couple fireballs, burning retreat if needed
Air —> #2 (to blind), eat the miss, #3 to push them back, drop a static field around them and kite.
Water --> #4, #2
Back to Earth, #2, etc.

Also, if you find yourself without a lot of kiting area, remember you can dodge through enemies (for this I love use the “about face” keybind, then burning retreat so they’re now standing in your fireline). You can kite enemies back and forth along a single line almost endlessly without pulling other adds.

Staff is about switching attunements and making as many white circles as you can. I’d post skill rotations, but I believe those are BS and you should switch attunements based on what you need.

Staff autoattacks are terrible, so there’s no point in sticking to one attunement when it’s power skills are on cooldown (save water, which autoattack is useful when you have a team in WvW bashing on keep gates).

In terms of survivability, I find that at least 10 earth and 10 arcane are a must, for the “earth armor at 50% health” trait and the arcane “boons on attunement” trait. If you’re a staff user, another ten points in arcane then will net you the “Bigger staff AoE” trait, which is too good to pass up, since staff is all about AoE. Where you put the other points is a personal choice. I’d say arcane/water, but that’s just personal preference.

I mostly play WvW with an organised guild, so my opinions may reflect that. I don’t really care about PvE.

i remember you that from yesterday shielding traits are bugged -.-
i am so upset………so your 10 earth are no more a must.

Wait, they’re bugged? What exactly is bugged about them?

whats your equipment status? I was having the same problem but not dying, just having real close fights alot. Check the broker for master or rare armor for your level. You will be suprised how cheap it is. I am embarasssed to say until I hit the 60’s most of my gear was way under levelled by at least 10 levels. Thats when I checked the broker and had one of those moments when I saw how cheap the armor was. Once I upgraded my armor and weapon, it was night and day. I upgraded once more at 70 then waited till 80 for armor that would no longer be under levelled.

One good thing that came of it tho was I learned to take on mobs really underpowered so once I got into my 80 gear things are so easy and I am going the staff wielding glass cannon route.

@scribbles
Look screens in bug thread

Arcane armor pops out at 30-35% instead of 50%
Final shielding at 10% (if you survive because you will get hit often for more than 10%) instead of 25%

did lot of tests….seems strange despite lot of people noticed, nobody is angry about that -.- they are quite vital to many builds.

LordByron.8369:

i remember you that from yesterday shielding traits are bugged -.-
i am so upset………so your 10 earth are no more a must.

Arcane armor pops out at 30-35% instead of 50%
Final shielding at 10% (if you survive because you will get hit often for more than 10%) instead of 25%

I haven’t noticed the two shielding traits being bugged really? Arcane Armor (I assume you mean Earth’s embrace for “Armor of Earth”, since you mention 10 pts in earth) pops out all the time for me. Yes, sometimes it happens when I’m at 40% health, but that’s only because you get hit down to that before it procs.

For example, you have 55% health (armor of earth hasn’t procced). You’re hit once, taking your health to 40% and armor procs. That’s not bugged, just the nature of the game. Also, it carries a 90s cooldown, so it doesn’t always go off at 50% if you just had it proc a minute ago.

Same can be said for Final Shielding. If you have 30% health (and final shielding hasn’t kicked in), you can be backstab killed to 0% hp without the skill going off as far as I know. Just the risk of the game.

Now, if you’re killed from 60% to zero (say a HUGE backstab crit) and NEITHER armor nor sheild procs, but the cooldowns go off, then yes, that’s bugged and should be fixed. I admit, I haven’t done extensive testing with these skills, but I do see them go off all the time in sPvP, so I use them, and love them.

No please i put screenshots for a reason…

There are numbers and proofs
Example out of 14500 HP final shielding not popping at 1490 but at next hit i suffered. (900)

same for earth’s embrace…..test for yourself…..or just look at screens in bug section..they are beyond doubt…..
Visually they are more than enough to prove the issue

There are screens right before and right after the enabler hit and the numbers are clearly shown

No please i put screenshots for a reason…

Fair enough, I didn’t know you were referring to screenshots in another thread.

That’s intriguing if this is the case, I personally have not noticed it (Armor of earth seems to trigger around 50% for me, but again, I have not control tested it) and final shielding I have no idea about (cause when I’m that low on HP in PvP, the last thing I worry about it at what % my shield popped, so long as it pops up).

Obviously, if they are truly bugged like that they should be looked at.

today worked completely random….

WHen i put it on it worked 2-3 times after that it ceased to work in few activation…..almost completely…..

Like it was decreasing the limit for some reason…..i obviously changed traits .-. i tested for 2 days already and gave proofs and they will fix it after they’ll have nerfed everything possible….because nerfs are a priority…

Stuff is fine and coming from GW1, ele without meteor shower is not ele! lol

I have balanced trait and have 4 sets of armors. Each armor are specific in use such as max dmg, max magic find, max healer/boon and max survivability. But which ever I use it really don’t make much difference (expect the survivability one), and the reason is it’s not about gears.

What you need is crowded control skills to keep mobs away. I have 1 favorite farm spot killing wolves at lvl 70. I aggro 3 to 5 of them to start and then wolves calls their buddies and some times there will be over 10 of them, I still can take them down no problem as long as I use control skills. Control FIRST then nuke.

I have been farming over 7 hours total by now but I only died 3 times? and when I am farming I am using magic find armor which is not the best dmg or defense armor.

I would say try this. It has worked out great for me, I am 80 and I have no problem taking down packs of enemies. Simply have to work out all the ways to stack boons, and you get great survivability with good damage.
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.1.0.13.0.20.0.22.0.2.21.11.10.24.2.2.9.4.0.0.16.0.0.35.0.0.48.54.0.65.61.0.10.10.10.20.20

I like using focus for my tank.

my big draw to focus is the shout based 4 sec combat damage immunity where i can still cast and move. also the 2 blinds and the knockdown not knock back or launch.

Those are straight forward defensive skills that do not take a lot of skill to use. soooo its a good noob tank training tool.

you must understand your characters tank.

This is what i gots at level 35…
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#6|17|2771|3986|100|2481|4480|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|10|1649|0|0|5|0|0|0|10|2250|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

A condition build can be rather powerful on a staff ele.
I’ve gotten to the point where i can cast eruption once, and then wait for the mob/mobs to die, and this applies to some orr mobs as well… (Rare Veggie Pizza helps a lot with this, though I wouldn’t suggest Just “waiting” with more than 1 mob on you, lol)

This will only work in PvE though, while fully geared towards condition damage.
(eruption can also wreck havoc on people on top of WvW walls, just aim quite far below them on the wall, to make it harder to spot, aiming for the roof above a gate also usually hit the people above.)

Elementalists have two choices.

Spec defensively for support, or die. Those are your only options. Sure, other things may work in PvE where your competition are brainless AI, but any form of PvP is a different story.

Elementalists are less about damage and more about survivability, because our best damage output is still relatively weak compared to what other classes can do. Ignore anyone telling you to L2P or get better. Skill factor is irrelevant. I’m a master at my class and specced defensively I still get 3 shot by some backstab thieves.

Some Engi’s and warriors can give me a run for my money too. You can be the best at this class, other classes will still out burst/DPS you. Support is your only option. Anyone telling you otherwise is inexperienced. Being able to dish out a bit more damage means absolutely nothing if you’re getting two-shotted by a thief, or if you die as soon as another team-mate shows up.

Bottom line, as a wise friend once told me while laughing at this horrible class:

“Lol ele’s either die or live forever. There’s no inbetween lolol.”