Guild Wars 2

I know a lot of you are frustrated with the Elementalist class. It appears weak on the surface, it’s squishy, and its damage output isn’t the best. I would like to share some tips to help you do more with your elementalist. For now, I’ll stick with dungeons – feel free to add more tips!

It’s true, Elementalists are squishy. In a dungeon environment where monsters hit everyone, and bosses hit hard, I find it best to use a Staff. True, its damage output is very low, but a staff elementalist is a boon to any team.

The Build
A lot of the build is up to your personal preference. Here are the talents I consider most important:
Fire:
Internal Fire (sometimes you just have to nuke things, and when you do, you’ll be attuned to fire).
Pyromancer’s Alacrity (allows for a second lava font by the time you’re done with all your other fire skills)

Air:
Inscription (Explained below)

Water:
Cleansing Wave (really, take it)

Arcane:
Elemental Attunement (Free might, regen, swiftness, and protection? Yes please!)

The rest are up to you. Some people like Blasting Staff for larger AoE attacks, I say it only makes Meteor Shower less accurate; it’s up to you.

The Skills
For healing, I use Glyph of Elemental Harmony. Try to use it in Water attunement, since when combined with Inscription, you will gain a free regen.

Utility:
Arcane Blast (Staff doesn’t have a lot of combo finishers, and this comes in very handy)
Conjure Frost Bow (my preference, though you can replace this with Glyph of Storms for an attack that also gives you a boon thanks to Inscription)
Mist Form (or other cantrip; I use Mist because you can revive a player while being invulnerable)

Elite:
Any of your summoning abilities (Hounds of Balthazar, Mistfire wolf, Elemental, etc, to help keep you away from the fight)

The Play
First thing you should remember: You’re not here to top the DPS chart in the team. An elementalist is best suited to help his group survive and be more effective in combat.

Your combo fields are your best friends as an elementalist – and you have a lot of them. You have so many stuns and slows you could keep an army of ogres at bay. While there is no “rotation” per se, your first priority with whatever attunement you’re currently in would be make sure your enemy is inside one of your combo fields. Why? Because each of them serves not one, but TWO purposes:

Fire: Lava Font – Aside from just damaging the opponent, each team member will now start burning the enemy with their normal attacks. Free team damage? Heck yeah!
Water: Frozen Ground – A superb AoE slow which could mean the difference between dying and successfully kiting/running away. Aside from that, each hit from your teammates will add Chill to your enemy!
Air: Static Field – AoE stun is great on its own, but when your team members start stacking vulnerability on their targets? Each stack is +1% damage.
Earth: Unsteady Ground (Not a combo field, but will slow down the enemy)

These fields should always be the first thing you cast when switching an attunement; they apply for any scenario you’re in since they’re both offensive and defensive.

Next, we’ll split the fight into certain phases:

Nuke phase
You’ll want to stay mainly in Fire presence, but don’t be afraid to switch if your skills are on Cooldown.
Put down a lava font first, flame burst, and Meteor Shower if the enemy/enemies are large enough for it to be effective (don’t use it if you’re fighting a single Asura, as it just won’t hit).
Throw a couple of fireballs until Lava Font is up again, and throw it down. Conjure a Frost Bow.
Volley that enemy first! It stacks vulnerability, and is also a combo finisher, aside from the multiple hits.
Frost pan for a quick attack.
Deep Freeze if it can affect the enemy (some bosses aren’t affected)
If deep freeze is successful, or if the boss is standing still, use Ice Storm.
If Frost Volley is off cooldown, use that again.
Discard your frost bow, repeat Fire rotation.

If you’re out of moves, I normally switch to Earth and Shockwave/Eruption the enemy.

Remember to always keep an eye out on your team’s health bars, as this brings us to:

Recovery phase
If you’re in Earth or Air attunements, throw your combo field one last time.
Find the player or group that needs help – go to them.
Switch to water attunement – you and he gets a free regen.
If he’s staying in place, use Geyser. Otherwise, or if you need to heal a large group, use Healing Rain.
Stand next to your healing target, and use Arcane Blast. Area healing!
Make sure Frozen Ground is up so your enemy can’t hurt you.

Aside from healing your immediate surroundings, you’ve also healed yourself considerably – and you don’t need many points in water for this to be effective. Arcane Blast does a nice amount of healing if used while you’re inside the Geyser or Rain.

Now, since your party is taking damage, you should consider moving to…

Kiting phase
During Kiting, your job would be mainly to dance between your attunements to use your slowing abilities.
Start with Earth, as it has 2 skills, and one instant immobilize.
Use Shockwave to immobilize your opponent. This gives you enough time to lay down Unsteady Ground in front of him.
If he’s using ranged attacks, use Magnetic Aura. It’s instant – what do you care!?

Switch to Air
Static Field around or in front of your enemy.
Windborne Speed to help anyone who’s staying too close, or has Chill/Cripple/Immobilize and can’t run.
Lightning Surge to make your enemy’s next attack miss.
Gust if the enemy is susceptible to it.

Switch to Water
Frozen Ground, obviously. Any incoming hits the enemy takes will also chill it.

Rinse, repeat.

Bottom Line
The Elementalist dies fast in dungeons, so stick to the background.
The Elementalist doesn’t do much damage, but he can boost his team’s damage considerably more!
The Elementalist doesn’t run faster, but he can slow and stun his enemies.

I hope these tips help those of you who are having a hard time finding your “niche” in a dungeon group. I don’t consider myself an uber player, but I do spend a lot of time on this class; I’d be happy to hear your own experiences and improvements.

Thanks so much for all of that. Definitely gave me some useful tips and ideas for my incoming dungeon adventures!

Very interesting read! WIll likely be trying this out soon – didn’t like my previous build much at all! Though I’d be interested to know where you put the remaining 10 points – you said Blasting staff makes meteor shower less accurate? I could be wrong but from basic looking at the size in the PvP lobby, it doesn’t seem to affect it at all, Just lava font, the 4 AoE water spells, shocking field and eruption

You seem to enjoy playing with projectile finishers, and it makes for an interesting read.

Another thing you might want to try out is the wonder of combo blast finishers, like the utility skill Arcane Wave or the staff skill Eruption. With these, you can stack AoE might boons (fire field) or swiftness boons (static field) for the entire team.

Putting 30 points into Arcana & getting the grandmaster trait Evasive Arcana will help a lot with this, as your dodges will set off a blast finisher at the end of your dodges during combat.

A more complete look on the combo system can be found at http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo, well worth to read up on no matter what your class or playstyle is. ^^;

I play my Staff Ele in a similar way in dungeons but on the topic of blast finishers, the only downfall to us as the Ele trying to do the finisher instead of hoping a teammate has one is we have to get far too close to the mobs for my personal taste. The only one I use is the occasional Arcane Wave inside of a Lava Font right at my feet for the might stacks, and with Pyromancer’s Alacrity it has a short enough CD that I can do that and then throw it at the bosses feet shortly after that. Trying to use Evasive Arcana in your own combo field is equally as dangerous in dungeons. The only one you could try as Staff is Eruption since it’s ground targeted. But generally trying to use a blast finisher in dungeons I never really do because the combo fields are usually on the packs of mobs/boss and as Staff Ele’s, we are far too squishy to be anywhere near anything that moves lol.

I like using Elemental Surge out of the Arcana tree. Arcana Power makes the effect trigger on your next five regular attacks. That gives us about 8 blinds in Air alone (obviously some will be redundant thanks to Arcana Power not getting the benefit of them all). Also, having the quicker swap time to keep switching into Water for the free cleanse is pretty nice too.

Glyph of Storm is OP in dungeons.

Take two eles.

Gather mobs.
Chain Glyph of Storm in Earth
Everyone AoE’s.
Pick up lewtz.

I play 30 arcana , 10 earth , 30 water for dungeons. I do the staff with blasting staff for larger fields and the evasive arcana dodge roll. I usually run around in air because it has the weakest buff when you swap to it. I usually throw down my static field in front of the ranger or other projectile player , and blind mob, then I usually run right up into the middle of things and swap to earth to give everyone protection and drop eruption right in the middle of everyone, if the fight is going well I switch to fire and flaming retreat back then cast lava font in the middle of them and dodge forward so everyone gets might from each fire field. If the fight was going badly I would not have went with fire and instead to switch to water to pull conditions and heal everyone from the 15 point trait swap bonus., Usually toss down frozen ground and then dodge roll into it to give everyone frost armor, and then drop rain or gyser and blast wave that for even more healing. I usually spend a ton of time in the back or wherever people need me but always dodge rolling into the middle to reapply protection every 8 sec or so and then swapping to water to remove conditions. Wow , that was a lot to type for essentially happens every 25 sec on ele lol. But the swap for earth and water are probably my favorites I think I rely on that water swap and gyser to heal myself way more than my heal skill. I have to be pretty hurt to hit that.

@Deinonychus.1498
I tried my best not to force you into any specific build, and even I play around with the talents between each run. ATM I have 10 points in Earth for the 50% Earth Shield trait, as I find the defensive traits useful when reviving allies who are a bit more towards where the action is.

In my opinion, reviving downed allies is key to a successful fight.

Regarding Meteor Shower, I seem to recall doing AC Explorable with the staff trait from Arcana, and my Meteor AoE being larger than the gravelings’ burrows. I could be wrong here though. Either way, I don’t find that it gives much use to me – but if you find it useful, go ahead and take it.

@Jikap.6547
I believe I mentioned it, but I mainly use Arcane Blast for the AoE healing. I put down a Geyser or Healing Rain, make my way to the player (or hopefully group) who needs it most, and blast! If it’s a really faceroll fight, I put down a Lava Font instead for the might.

Nice to see a thread of right good tips for an ele. I am already using most of what’s written here for a while.
Can also add something. It is smart move to pull pack of mobs using Frozen ground. Then party can aoe them, while you place your crippling wall and stun field, then start to aoe in fire attunement. In process of all that, slowly move backwards. By time that mobs will reach your party, they all are half-dead, if not more.
I also putting on reflection shield and running to that shooting mobs, to see they are hitting themselves for several thousands of damage. Also using this to defend someone, by running between them and range mobs.