Guild Wars 2

Hi there. I am a new player to Guild Wars 2, currently playing as a Silvari Elementalist.

Could you give me some advice on playing this class, what sort of skills to obtain and which ones to miss.

Plus any kind of advice you can give to a first time player would be great. Thanks!

I like frost bow, arcane shield, mist form, lightning flash, lightning hammer, and signet of air and signet of fire. Those are the utilities I first grab for easy movement through higher level zones and killing mobs. For leveling an ele I recommend dagger focus, and switch to staff if you’re in a zone you don’t feel comfortable meleeing. Most skills have their purpose though so you will eventually want to catch em all.

Firstly, find a weapon set you enjoy. Personally I think d/d is the coolest, but I enjoy playing staff the most

secondly, learn to practice cycling through your attunements while fighting. my first character was an ele but i got bored of it and rerolled months later. I think it’s because most of the time I spent in water attunement so the fights were pretty boring :P

thirdly, learn combo fields/finishers ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo ) they’re useful for every class, but extremely so for eles imho.

EDIT: also this if you haven’t checked it already https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/OMG-If-you-only-knew-this-tips-for-new-players/first

Thanks for all your tips. I’d noticed there were things called combo’s but didn’t really know what they were or how they could help. I’m playing around with different weapon sets at the moment, currently trying out the staff.

Thanks for the helpful links too! I’ll let you know how I’m getting along later.

One combo you should get to know really well is fire staff 2 (on yourself) followed by arcane wave. It will give you and 5 allies 3 stacks of might. Might is good for eles.

Learn to move around and kite things. You are a squishy so you tend to get the beat down quickly in melee combat. Lightning Hammer will be your best friend when you get access to it and you fly through content once it’s open. Read up on combos and how to stack might, you will be required to learn/know this when you get into groups.

Most of all for an ele though…learn the attunement dance. Don’t sit in one element for too long and don’t get used to spamming the AA of fire over and over again, play with the various things you can do and learn the timing of your hardest hitting skills. Some traits will be extra helpful so you might want to invest some learning into the later levels of an ele.

Good luck!

Elementalists are quiet the challenge to play, so best of luck with that.

I’ve leveled every class to 80 mostly, and enjoyed this game for quiet some time now but, Ele’s have always felt like I had to put in several times the effort to get the same result as someone else doing the same thing, but if you like to be challenged and have quick reflexes to change attunements on the fly and dodge like a chipmunk on crack then go for it, lol!!!

As a main ele here are the tips I learned

Rebind your keys
the default key of attunment swap (f1-f4) are excessively counterproductive and will slow you down at the end of the road. Bind them closer to your wasd or whatever keys you use to move
Same with utility skills (6-0)
way to far. As soon as you need to remove one finger from your moving keys, it is too far.

move move move and move.
I can not emphasize this enough. An ele can NOT take hits. It is not a forgiving class, learn to kite and always be in the back of your enemy.

Find weapons sets you like and learn them thoroughly, until your dreams are full of it.
The combo, the details of each skills. Learn the rythme that fit your playstyle the best.

I’m telling you, elementalist is not a forgiving class, it leaves little room for error, it has quite the DPS but it is squishy, frustrating and the finger dance you need to learn is mind numbing.
It will take more times than other class to achieve the same results, and you will often feel frustrated.
However it is fun and rewarding and powerful.

Skills I like (Mind you I’m doing WvW this might not apply in PvE):
Teleport: great evasive or fast moving skill, can combo with channeling skills to place yourself somewhere else.
Cleansing waves: A great must, clean three conditions off you. The less conditions you have the happier you will be.
Signet of air: When I need to move fast this is the one I chose
frost bow: Great aoe weapon. It hits hard and is always welcome anywhere
Armor of earth: the cooldown is horrible, but it is a nice cantrip which decrease the damage you receive by 33% and provide you with stability (which prevent from being moved against your will (launched, stunned ,dazed, floated, knock down etc)
Fiery greatsword: Nice damage, nice aoe, awesomely looking and great when you need to get away, what more could you ask?