Guild Wars 2

I am a PvE Ele using a scepter/focus build. I have not seen a single elementalist on my server using this weapon combo so I thought I would provide some insight into how I am managing.

I am currently level 65 and I have not played other weapons since level 20 so I do not know how the difficulty really compares, but I know that I have fun playing with my current setup because it challenges me and I know that if I loose I can change up my strategy slightly to get a different result.
I would like to point out first off that the only enemy type I cannot solo within 3 levels of me is champions, but I don’t think they were intended to be soloed anyways. Hats off to eles that can solo champions.

My Primary strategy is a priority of these concepts:
1. crowd control (mitigating/minimizing damage)
2. Regenerate health (through constant casting or switching to water attunement)
2. DoTs (overlap and stack constantly)
3. burst damage (primarily for multi target fights)
More on this later…

Gear
I purchase every piece of gear that has more armor and conditional damage. I slot for magic find, burn and bleed duration increase and if available more conditional damage.
Magic find is important to get those one or two rare drops which put you ahead of the gear rush and save karma in the long run. Karma runs out pretty quickly so I tend to help out friends with their lower level stuff and encourage them to do every dynamic event we come across which also contributes significantly to leveling.

Slot Skills
I run a signet build as I found the 30 point in earth gives “Written in Stone” providing the passive bonuses of signets even after they have been activated.

Signet of Restoration: Passive heals each time you use any skill which is further encouragement to pop off all abilities before changing attunements. Activate for on the fly healing, keeping in mind there is a small cast time so it will reduce dps but outlasting your enemy is the name of the game with this system anyways.

Signet of Fire: Not fantastic passive but definitely a bread and butter active effect. This lets me keep burn on an enemy at all times (unless dispelled of course)

Signet of Earth: Passive gives much needed toughness and activate gives another snare which I use as a just in case ability when I pick up an add or loose flow and need a reset.

Signet of Air: Passive gives crucial speed increase to help stay away from enemies and helps run out of damage fields, saving dodges.

Glyph of Elementals: When I get too many adds or need a tactic change I whip out an earth elemental and start dropping fire bombs with phoenix and dragons tooth while still mitigating damage to keep the elemental alive as long as possible. Also a good thing to keep on hand for escaping a hopeless fight

Traits
30 Earth
-Signet Mastery (faster signet CD = more skills per fight)
-Serrated Stones (longer bleed = more condition damage)
-Written in Stone (turns signets into a major asset)
15 Water
-Shard of Ice (coupled with Sig Mastery = dps booster)
30 Arcane
-Elemental Attunement (healing and damage mitigation)
-Vigorous Scepter (more endurance = more mobility)
-Arcane Energy (signets pump in more endurance = more mobility)

While leveling I selected traits that provided more mobility or damage output.

Skill Rotation
This is more of a philosophy system with my main focus being mitigate damage and at least keep a burning DoT on the

enemy. If you have a choice between taking damage to deal damage or preventing damage you want to always prevent the damage. I find most of my attacks are performed after a SUCCESSFUL evasion. You want to retain and regain as much health as possible because you never know when there might be an add or a back to back fight.
Also, do not concern yourself with interrupting auto attacks as they will only contribute a small amount to dps.

Single Ranged Enemy Fight:
I like to spend the first half of the fight in defense mode and slowly get defense and DoTs applied giving the enemy a chance to waste their hard hitting skills.

-Air Attunement- I typically start off in Air attunement as this provides the most damage mitigation options
-Blinding Flash- I pop them with “Blinding Flash” to give me a chance to cast the first…
-Signet of Fire- This is your main damage dealer, keep it up
-Swirling Winds- then follow up with “Swirling winds” and switch over to…
-Earth Attunement-
-Magnetic Wave- Put up “Magnetic Wave” and let fly a full set of…
-Stone Shards- for bleed
-Obsidian Flesh- then “Obsidian Flesh” giving time to cast…
-Rock Barrier- which will mitigate some damage in the coming phase
-Dust Devil- to provide a blind needed switch to…
-Water Attunement- which will give a burst of health needed to lay down the first…
-ShatterStone- which most ranged enemies will just stand in, follow up with…
-Comet- and then another…
-Shatterstone- normal enemies will be down to about 20% HP and can be dodged and auto atked, but if not change to…
-Fire Attunement- and cast…
-Dragon’s Tooth- quickly followed up with…
-Phoenix- to take advantage of the vulnerability stacks from shatterstone then switch over to…
-Air Attunement- to start the cycle over…
-it is important to use your damage mitigators maximum effect time to allow your skills as much time to finish their

cooldowns and keep Signet of Fire up as much as possible even if they are immune to burn because signets cause vulnerability. I typically use air and earth signets when I run out of endurance and need to prevent some incoming damage.

Single Melee Enemy Fight:
Same thing as before with being in defense mode to get DoTs up.
-Air Attunement-
-Gale- I love starting with this ability because it SLAMS them into the ground
-Signet of Fire- Again keep this burning even if it is only for the vulnerability
-Blinding Flash- immediately follow with…
-Lightning Strike- and change to…
-Water Attunement- which is where it gets tricky, I like to hit them with…
-Freezing Gust- then follow up with a strategically placed…
-Shatterstone- then dodge once or twice to get off…
-Signet of Earth- in order to get off another…
-Shatterstone- then quickly switch over to…
-Fire Attunement- and put up a…
-Dragon’s Tooth- and before it drops pop on a…
-Fire Shield- to get the might buff, then I usually pop the
-Signet of Air- so that while they are blind I can get off the…
-Phoenix- and usually a…
-Flamewall- and quickly change to…
-Earth Attunement- then, to cripple them in order to get on the other side of the flamewall pop…
-Magnetic Barrier- and try to get at least one volley of…
-Stone Shards- which will put on bleed and burn DoTs…
-Obsidian Flesh- will provide the time needed to get up…
-Rock Barrier- and follow up with…
-Dust Devil- then back to…
-Air Attunement- to start over again
-Melee attackers like to come on strong and hard so they will land plenty of attacks but if you keep moving they will be nothing more than a drop in a bucket.

I want to stress that the above two strategies are a general flow, you will be spending a lot of time dodging or line of sighting if able. If another player joins into the fight I like to go into tank mode picking up their buffs and taking advantage of their fields. Other players buffs to a LOT to power up the elementalist.

Multiple Enemy Assorted:
-I am able to juggle about 5 enemies at a time using a merged strategy of the above two systems. Melee enemies are easy to keep away from so I like to keep the Ranged enemies on lock down while kiting and doting the melee attackers. Remember the goal is to outlast the enemies, not burn them down quickly. If things get out of hand, (which happened a lot until I got the hang of juggling and kiting) I will use a Rock Elemental to tank while I burn them down with Shatterstone’s vulnerability and Dragons Tooth, but damage mitigation is still important because they will take the tank down quick without some protection. If I get a veteran add that I don’t think I can handle with the group I am already fighting I will usually pull out a Rock Elemental and run.

There are too many circumstantial tricks to highlight them all but if something doesn’t work simply take a moment to consider what you are fighting and make adjustments accordingly and eventually it will come naturally.

Reserved for future expansion

It’s interesting that you would use it for general use. I only use Scepter/Focus in extremely specific situations, and by that I mean I only use it in Caudecus’s Manor and the Lt Kohler fight in AC explorable. The damage mitigation, especially from ranged attackers, and ranged burst make it useful in these situations. I usually slot Glyph of Storms with it since the Earth storm is amazing (it’s basically a temporary invulnerability field).

For general use, though? I prefer D/D. I’ll also sometimes switch into S/D for the extreme burst and might-stacking (oh so much might stacking) if I know I’m going to be going up against single, tough enemies that don’t move around a lot.

I initially started off as d/d but wanted to give each combination a chance with the thought in mind that it was intended to be used in an effective way by the designers so because I was struggling for so long to understand the scepter and focus practicality I wound up at level 65 before realizing i was actually proficient even though it still takes a great deal of effort. I may have stumbled upon one of the few ways to use this combination by stubbornly giving it the benefit of the doubt. I will check out glyph of storms as i had not considered its use as a damage mitigator.

Bolt to the Heart too good to pass up ever since it was buffed
to 33% target health.

It is hard to resist the urge to pick up damage boosters, but I have not found (for me) a damage booster worth exchanging for more damage reduction. It works well for me to play as a damage nullifying tank.

You arn’t supposed to take damage in first place and if you can’t survive without focus in your hand in standart dungeon there’s something wrong with your ability to play. Focus is deff useful on fights like lupi, but wearing it all the time means gimping your party.