Guild Wars 2

Unlike a lot of forums there doesn’t seem to be a stickied “Elementalist 101” post for new arrivals to get some idea of how they should “think” as an elementalist to get the most out of the class; basic overview of major synergies, weapon functionality etc.

Just wondering if anyone has any useful resources.

I’ve played a Mesmer almost exclusively since BWE3 and it’s a great class, fun to play, but wanted a change of scene; I tried guardian but the lack of combos made it very dull – creative use of skills wasn’t something guardian seemed big on and made me realise what I like are combos and fiddly skill switching, and looking over the eles this seems to be an area they excel in.

Unfortunately I’m having trouble finding any build discussion beyond D/D (Which I’m having fun with on my lowbie ele, but mastering a single cookie cutter build does not confer a full understanding of the class :p), so a point towards a guide, or a brief rundown of how to think about the different weapons, would be useful. (For example on a mesmer I could say that staff is a close range weapon, great for laying down ethereal combos, generating clones and punishing foes with anti-melee conditions, it’s not for long range combat despite appearances, nor is it a high DPS weapon).

Once I know how to think of my weapons, utilities and attunements theorycrafting gets a lot easier :p

Edit: I mostly play PvE BTW

Nobody?

There’s no useful tidbits about how to get in the mindset for ele, just roll D/D and stick with it forever and ever? :p

Sounds like you have D/D covered, if you have further questions on that front I’d refer you to daphoenix’s guide—that one is a genius.

My experience with S/D is such that I’ve had the most success running the 0/10/0/30/30, just swapping in scepter MH. Scepter toned down the pace a bit for me because you have more range and can afford to be slower in your decision making. Scepter’s major limitation for me is that it’s pretty much entirely single target.

Staff is a whole different ball game from D/D and S/D. Again, I ran 0/10/0/30/30 (or slight variations). With staff, you can only be so fast before your cast times start holding you back. Since you will be very much limited in your ability to react to combat, I advise that you pre-plan your battles as best as you can (find vantage points, etc.) and you have to think a few moves ahead. You will also need to know when to retreat and do so much sooner than you would on D/D because staff has no escapes. Your best hope for getting away is the CC you have in Frozen Ground, Static Field and Unsteady Ground.

Staff needs work because this strategy only gets you so far, GW2 combat is hugely reactive and the slow cast times + attunement swap cooldowns often prevent you from performing at your highest level in a 1v1 setting.

The common theme among all weapon sets is attunement swapping. The best advice I can give is learn to do it quickly (as quickly as the slow swap cooldowns will allow) and try to memorize all of your skills. It’s tempting to blow through everything off CD because once you leave attunement, you’re locked out for 9+ seconds, however the best players seem to save specific skills for specific times.

As far as mentality, I think one of my bad habits as an Ele is I try to work too fast. It’s an easy trap to fall into because being so squishy can cause you to be a little frantic. Take your time to learn the properties of all of your tools and the situations for which they are best called upon.

Thanks for the advice.

The slow cast times on staves were what turned me off ele in the first place during beta and caused me to overlook it’s other features – coming from GW1 my preconception of ele would be that it’d have long cast times and basically amount to mashing the same few spells ad nauseum, and staff looked exactly like my worst fears manifest, so I quickly moved onto testing out the other classes and never gave ele a second thought til now >.<

I can see now from playing a couple days unlike many classes there’s no “cheat sheet” of good reliable combos as there is simply so many of them, and each attunement and combo works best in completely different situations; still that’s half the fun of it, discovering the best strategies for each situation :p

What’s your thoughts on conjured weapons? – I assumed they’d be gimmicky, but they actually seem to hit really hard and have their own self contained synergies, at the same time I havn’t heard anyone really talking about them; besides the firey GS anyway – do they remain useful into the late game or are they more of a curiosity that are just helpful when levelling?

I’ll bring in a conjured weapon in certain situations. How often you bring them depends on how much your build is able to sacrifice a utility slot for one. I don’t build around them because I feel that exchanging 20 skills for 5 is not worth it, not to mention it’s hard to find a way to slot them instead cantrips or other utilities.

Citadel of Flame path 2 is an example where conjured frost bow is very useful. It does a lot of damage against the Eternal Flame and if you are running D/D then it is also your most accessible source of damage in that particular situation.

I don’t feel that they are gimmicky but I do think they are specialized weapons for special situations.

I have about 350 hours on my Ele and I don’t feel very effective at all. I’ll keep searching for advice and ideas on how to play better but sometimes it feels like we are at a disadvantage unless we are only playing bunker.

For PvE you can use any weapon. Just use the one you like the most. Here is a general overview:

• Staff: AoE damage, CC and support, lots of combo fields
• D/x: good damage, some CC and mobility, heal
• S/x: good damage (which can be dodged easily when it comes to fire), blind, condition removal and heal
• x/D: huge burst skills (which can be dodged easily), some CC, combo field and mobility
• x/F: CC, defense and combo field

For D/D builds I would recommend this guide:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-3-29-12/first

Here is a short guide about the traits:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Rating-Elementalist-traits/first

I hope this helps.