Guild Wars 2

I recently rolled and elementalist and wanted to get some player feedback as to what to expect with the class.
On paper,it looks great. I even tested some high level builds in the mists and, so far, the end game builds look really fun.
However, its seem in practice this class doesn’t allow for a lot of solo play which I am really into.
Comparatively, to say, warrior, necro, or guardian, lower level game play seems to be isolated to trash mobs, because even veteran fights are laborious.
Granted, this could be due to the April 15th changes to trait points, and I may just not have the rotations down as well as I should.
In the example of the the Franklin Quickblade skill point; seems to be kitten near impossible even at level 27, while on the flip side I can meticulously execute an
entire cadre of bandits with severe prejudice.
Is this what I should expect until level X? Is there a specific attunement which ele’s should focus on for say doing solo champion fights (which I love to do) ?
Are there utilities that just not viable until level 80?

No build to post, since I don’t have any trait points yet, but at this time I am using dagger/focus with signet of restoration, arcane wave, signet of fire, and glyph of storms.

Each Champ has different mechanics and each class has a different profile of which mechanics it does well against and which it does not.

That said, one easier way to solo champions as an elementalist is to use your elemental summons in earth attunement to draw agro and “tank” for you. Once you get access to the elite that gives you two or three tank pets which is usually enough for long fights.

For Champions that only have melee attacks, you can kite pretty well with either scepter or staff.

Champions with strong ranged attacks can be much harder, depending on their frequency and whether you have enough endurance to dodge all of them. Sometimes strafing and changing direction 180 degrees after the ranged attack is launched can cause the ranged attack to fly wide and save you from burning precious endurance. Also, the vigor on crit trait in the arcana line can be very helpful against ranged Champions because it greatly increases your dodges.

Hope this helps.

Elementalists have some of the most painful levelling in the game.
This is for a few reasons:
1) Power is loaded into higher-tier traits, rather than utilities. For warriors, you can solo half the game with just endure pain and healsig, but ele’s have nothing on that level.
2) Eles have the lowest health/armor in the game, so it’s just more difficult to survive in general.
3) They are also the most mechanically difficult class, just to achieve a power level comparable to any other class. Thieves would probably take second, but it’s pretty darn easy to repeatedly stealth on the ai, who refuse to do anything about you while you’re invisible.
As a part of this, abilities aren’t particularly viable on their own and need to be used in conjunction with others.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Elementalists have some of the most painful levelling in the game.
This is for a few reasons:
1) Power is loaded into higher-tier traits, rather than utilities. For warriors, you can solo half the game with just endure pain and healsig, but ele’s have nothing on that level.
2) Eles have the lowest health/armor in the game, so it’s just more difficult to survive in general.
3) They are also the most mechanically difficult class, just to achieve a power level comparable to any other class. Thieves would probably take second, but it’s pretty darn easy to repeatedly stealth on the ai, who refuse to do anything about you while you’re invisible.
As a part of this, abilities aren’t particularly viable on their own and need to be used in conjunction with others.

Obviously the AI needs to L2P

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Elementalists have some of the most painful levelling in the game.
This is for a few reasons:
1) Power is loaded into higher-tier traits, rather than utilities. For warriors, you can solo half the game with just endure pain and healsig, but ele’s have nothing on that level.
2) Eles have the lowest health/armor in the game, so it’s just more difficult to survive in general.
3) They are also the most mechanically difficult class, just to achieve a power level comparable to any other class. Thieves would probably take second, but it’s pretty darn easy to repeatedly stealth on the ai, who refuse to do anything about you while you’re invisible.
As a part of this, abilities aren’t particularly viable on their own and need to be used in conjunction with others.

I’d say Mesmers are the hardest to level.
Most of their damage comes from Phantasms, and they don’t get any significant buffs until much higher levels. I know leveling my Mesmer was an absolute pain, and I hear it’s even worse now with trait changes.

Zach.3264:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Elementalists have some of the most painful levelling in the game.
This is for a few reasons:
1) Power is loaded into higher-tier traits, rather than utilities. For warriors, you can solo half the game with just endure pain and healsig, but ele’s have nothing on that level.
2) Eles have the lowest health/armor in the game, so it’s just more difficult to survive in general.
3) They are also the most mechanically difficult class, just to achieve a power level comparable to any other class. Thieves would probably take second, but it’s pretty darn easy to repeatedly stealth on the ai, who refuse to do anything about you while you’re invisible.
As a part of this, abilities aren’t particularly viable on their own and need to be used in conjunction with others.

I’d say Mesmers are the hardest to level.
Most of their damage comes from Phantasms, and they don’t get any significant buffs until much higher levels. I know leveling my Mesmer was an absolute pain, and I hear it’s even worse now with trait changes.

Ehh, I have both an ele and a mes level 80.
I figured out how to get aggro onto my illusions pretty early, made it much easier.

Zach.3264:

I’d say Mesmers are the hardest to level.

For real? I found mine really easy. I was level 80 in two days.

Then again maybe I was just too “mesmerised” by all the fabulous purple butterflies. ^-^

I only remember one veteran I couldn’t solo on my ele and mebbe I’ll go back and try it again it was somewhere in dredgehaunt. One veteran abomination with Frenzy did stop me from finishing a quest for 2 days until I put a sigil of nullification on my dagger to take away his Frenzy.

For what its worth Franklin Quickblade is absurdly hard for the level of player that’s supposed to do him.

But anyway, the key to these hard vets is usually to use an earth elemental to tank him while you focus on maxing damage to kill him b4 the elemental times out. If necessary you can equip both of the glyph utilities and stagger their use to keep an earth elemental up almost constantly. This is really the easiest way to solo hard vets on ele.

It seems strange to me that you don’t have Armor of Earth on your utilities I keep it on my utility bar non stop no matter what it is I’m doing. Since your using d/f once you have traits you will be able to give yourself Protection thru auras but thats in the future.

I would consider trying Scepter, the Rock Barrier skill and the 2 blinds help with defense and the extra range can reduce the damage you take since bosses do extra damage in melee in this game. Just remember to hit Lightning Strike as much as possible or your DPS with scepter will be awful.

For what its worth at level 40 I could solo Champion Wolfmaster(easiest champ imo) with scepter on my ele. Wolfie is polite enough to keep his distance so scepter kept me out of his melee damage range and the blinds really help if you hit them after every cooldown.

Well, on most classes you need to experience the ‘tells’ of attacks and subsequently memorize them. However from my experience an ele has the least room for error, and sometimes you simply died in 1 -2 hits. There is nothing to learn when you are dead on the floor.

A second problem would be that most of our damage dealt and or survivability comes from specific trait set ups. This was the same before the april patch, and has become even more bothersome during leveling up post patch. Simply cannnot do jack about this, at 80 we are in a very good place in pve though.

Anyways some tips that might help you:

- LoS projectile attacks, find a pillar/obstacle wall pull the champion and whenever he uses a dangerous ranged attack move behind the wall.

- When using a dagger +focus Air 4 destroys projectiles, earth 4 reflects projectiles and earth 2 ( not in the description) blocks a projectile at the peak of the animation + earth 5 obsidian flesh turns you invulnerable

- Some specific skills have frames in which you dodge attacks, for example the skill 3 on a fiery great sword, fire 3 on main hand dagger and fire 4 on staff. Just to name a few.

- You can remove stacks of defiance on a champion ( the yellow ones I believe) so you can interupt the champion to avoid an especially bothersome attack. Under the effects of defiance you cannot CC a champion.

- Protection, weakness and regeneration are important for sustainability vs champions, the only real damage mitigation we can get and passive healing.

- Some utilities are really good for survivability, including glyph of storms ( not vs a champ though), glyph of elemental power (earth) for the cripple, glyph of elementals for the rock golem which can tank. Obviously cantrips can help out a bunch as well. A much forgotten utility skill is earth shield, it can make you invulnerable, though its probably not worth the slot.

That skill point vet still gives me troubles even as an 80. Take the Earth Elemental to tank for you. Try to kill the adds first, then kite and dps him the last. You may want to take d/f for 2 cc/interruption, 2 projectile mitigation and an invuln.

elementalist is the most squishy class to level, you need lots of patience,
you will die a lot in personal story sequences and skill points.
for skill points use the megaserver chat for help…
for living story, just abuse respawn.
ele and thief were the two classes i struggled the most ( war/guard the least) of all classes.

try to get the best gear you can, and use condi, they are quite powerful while leveling.

SonOfKrypton.4357:

Zach.3264:

I’d say Mesmers are the hardest to level.

For real? I found mine really easy. I was level 80 in two days.

Then again maybe I was just too “mesmerised” by all the fabulous purple butterflies. ^-^

How did you level to 80 in two days?!