Guild Wars 2

First of all I´m a casual gamer, I play a couple hours a day and watch videos on youtube of guys doing amazing stuff, XunleashedGW2 cheers to you.

But as a casual gamer I was never able to be that good…that is until I decided to post a build on the forums and some amazing players were patient enough to bear with me attempts at a build (thanks).

So here I am new to guild wars 2 and happily playing PVE until I find my first champion…I can still recall the beating I took, my head spinning and the words WTF on my mind…what am I doing wrong? Why did I die so fast?

This questions are the starting point of almost every elementalist out there, and If you’re anything like me (bit lazy and impatient) you jump to google to try to make sense of builds made by true masters and try to use them…problem is they are masters because they took the time to try and fail and learn…pick up and try again…that’s what makes a true master.

So failure still fresh in mind (the horrible memories of how we were so easily one or two shoted to oblivion in mind) most elementalists tend to gravitate to this type of build. This allows us to fight almost everything (PVE) and be confortable:

Full Cleric Build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQFAWhMmmbwx4gjDAkHucCLjChUekzM2A-jkCBoNAkIAZRFRjtMMsVXBp8KaqZER16kY2bCRmca1A-w

Pros:

At a staggering 1424 healing power and a very solid 2689 armor (not to mention the defensive selection of traits) you are able to almost ignore enemy aoe and damage as you can out heal most of the damage you receive. This at start is a God sent, since we don’t know many of the skills in the game and we are still trying to learn to use our skills and dodging and kitting…leading to awesome moments were our finger get all tangled up, been there and I bet you have too at some point in time

Cons:

Well, If you read a bit about the theory crafting on elementalist you have found this kind of feedback about this build:

You hit like a wet noodle
You can’t kill kitten
Etc etc…

But given that new players tend to be stubborn and resistant to change, let me show you exactly what you have become:

My experience with Full cleric build:

With this build most of us start to feel like true pros…that is until we decide to enter wvw…
Ah sweet wvw, I still remember coming from bay and finding my first enemy zerg, how I was instantly vaporized and thought to myself…cowards, If it was one on one they’d see,u they could never kill me this fast, not on this build…
I was so innocent back then…until I fought that warrior (the nightmares still haunt me), even with all my defense he cut through me like butter…unbalanced I cried, this is so unfair I protested…from that moment on I really started to learn to play an elementalist (or so I thought), so here are some of the things I’ve tried to learn:

? Dodging – If it doesn’t hit you it doesn’t kill you, to learn this go to heart of the mists and pick a fight with the sparring npcs (don’t attack just try to survive as long as you can), this will train you to dodge and to recognize some of the other profession skills.

? Might stacking – There are several ways to do this, I’ll focus on the D/D:

Sigil of battle – Works for attunement swap, easy to maintain during a fight since you will change attunements a lot.

Fire 3, change to earth and dodge roll on top of the fiery trail, hard to maintain during a fight since you can also use Fire 3, Fire 5 to deliver a powerful damage spike.

Fire 4, change to earth, Earth 4, Earth 5, easy to maintain (unless interrupted) don’t be afraid to waste Earth 4 and remember you can start casting earth 5, gain might, and teleport to deliver the damage to an opponent.

? Use Water 2 to self-heal, either cast it and run towards it or cast it and strafe to the left or right of your opponent doing a circle around them.

? Use Lightning 4 then Lightning 5 to catch running opponents

? Use Lightning 5 then Lightning 4 to knockdown the enemy and run right next to him while he tries to get up.

? Personally I use fiery great sword to run from zergs or surprise attacks…Just use skill 3 and 4 and you should be able to outrun even the fastest warriors

? Placing yourself inside an enemy zerg using Fire 3, Fire 4, Earth 4, Earth 5, Dodge rolling on Earth places a lot of pressure on the enemies…Just be fast, get in and hit them hard, and get out using whatever means necessary…mist form is an excellent exit strategy to the back of your own zerg. Rinse and repeat until the enemy zerg breaks up, from that moment on pick your targets and start to remove them from the fight.

? Water 3 is great to slow enemies down, can be used both as an way to gain distance or to chase enemies

Armed with all this knowledge I went back to fight the nefarious warrior…alas I was defeated again, It was a matter of time for him to catch me on my cooldowns and winning the duel. So unfair I thought…but then I started thinking, I really hit like a wet noodle, what if I invested a bit more on the attack? How should I do this?

This is a critical point on your evolution, a point where many give up or
like in my case follow completely wrong directions, some try to jump straight to professional builds at this point, some make it…some well, let’s put it this way, it’s no coincidence we all have found elementalists dead in a situation or other.

Just for you to see my evolution, it’s in this stage that you start to think in doing builds like this:

This tried to increase your damage output with conditional damage:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbwR5wjDAEFucyQhIfUeQzM2A-jEDBoLBkkGgEBM7RINFSassNsVXBp8KaqZER16kYmxDRzSO1CBMZNA-w

This one trade a bit of healing power for critical damage and power:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbwR5wjEAEFucyogIiCPUekzM2A-jEDBYLBkEBkKAIzcasZPBpsNsVXBp8KaqZER16kYmxDRzSO1SBExYA-w

The main difference between this builds and the full cleric build is that we now dropped from 1424 healing power to around 800…a huge difference.

So if you are as stubborn as I was and take this kind of builds to wvw you’ll notice several things:

? You need to be more aware of your placement on the zerg, no longer standing on the front together with all the jar-heads.

? Area of effect and large telegraphed moves should now raise an warning sign in your brain, making you dodge, teleport, mist form, earth armor anything but counting on your ability to out heal the enemy damage output.

? You now watch your conditions like a hawk, the moment you see confusion/torment/burning you remove them as fast as you can, no questions asked.

? You still can’t overwhelm tanky builds…so damage output still isn’t what it should be.

Now this is the beginning of your final learning stage, where being stubborn helps, and where you can start to get to a more acceptable level (still on this stages myself).

During this final stage you should:

Keep decreasing healing power
Keep improving your reaction skills
Keep increasing damage output
Keep learning about other professions, if you know the most common attack combos the better you can outplay them

Hopefully you can feel comfortable with a build like this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbyR4gjDAkHuADLiCPUekzM2A-jEEBYgAYjgkIAUBg5ogJqERrlhht6KalXBRbDT5CQ7CSFTp2aOrmzBygOxyAoPGA-w

This build is from Xunleashed (a master elementalist)

And now my very own (hope it isn’t really bad) build, the Hybrid power-condition-tank-omancer:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbwR5wjDAEFucyQRHfUeQzM2A-jkDBIhBkEBgKAMDFIJVRLNNsVhRr0JIVQhVfET9iIq2eTo2iLa2zIyA4vGA-w

And remember, we may be beaten but we will never be broken.

Man, this is gonna sound harsh, but I’m only saying it because I enjoyed reading all three of your threads, even spent an hour or two attempting to tweak down your healing power builds in part 2 but fell asleep at 5am.

BASICALLY BACK TO CLASSIC 0/10/0/30/30 – The only thing that has changed was ascended and celestial gear allowing us to fill in the glaring holes. Sadly as good as it feels the end result is a net zero because every other class has access to the same gear.

I really was shouting for your corner man, hoping you could find that sweet spot with your builds. I’m really sad you haven’t been able to do that.

I’m entertained man. My advice for you is consider a build which can accomplish fighting the majority of dueling builds, successfully roam, successfully stand up in a zerg.

When you do that, you’ll be happy. I’ve done that, and I’m extremely happy.

I haven’t personally shared everything I’ve learned, as A, I’m not as philanthropic as some people are (like yourself) and B, I feel like I’ve put in so much work into learning ele, that I’m willing to help tutor people and help them come to the same conclusions I’ve come to.

But I can tell you that learning the class like the back of your hand is 33.3% of the battle, having good key binds is 33.3% of the battle, and having the proper gear and traits is 33.4% of the battle.

It’s just a balancing act. Figure out your stats, learn your class, then learn your opponent. There’s no real guide to being overpowered on a currently average class.

To MarzAttakz:

I know…I also felt like after this path presenting the build from Xunleashed felt like cheating…and I’m also stubborn like hell So I’m gonna change my post, and present my
Hybrid power-condition-tank-omancer build

And thanks for the support hope you like this new build, at least is something fresh in the elementalist scene.

To Mbelch:

ehehehe glad to see there are people enjoying this guide I’m gonna place my next version of the Hybrid power-condition-tank-omancer build, hope you like it.

To check the analysis of my build please check:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Build-Analysis-of-an-Overpow-D-D-Elemen/first#post3444901

Your build and advice isn’t bad, but I feel the title should read Talyn’s Guide to a DD Elementalist.

Really overpowered and elementalist shouldn’t be in the same place unless this post is more than 6 months old. It’s true at release we had a lot, and because of the high skill cap of our class not everyone could achieve it easily. It’s just sad to see that produced such a nerf to oblivion that we now have to play amazingly just to achieve mediocre results. At least it’s still somewhat fun for me at the moment, but it is often disappointing.

If any class could use aegis to prevent the first backstab, I think it’s the ele. Being 2 shotted with over 3k armor is always frustrating.