Guild Wars 2

Hi,
So I just hit 30 on my ele, been running D/D mainly, mixing in stats of Toughness and Power. Since the nature of D/D is being within melee range, I am finding that I only have a few seconds before my health is halfway down. I understand elementalists are the squishiest of all classes, and that we have the greateast aoe burst of most classes, but it is becoming annoying to see my HP drop to half health, and then sometimes much lower, when pulling 3 or more mobs at once.

Typical rotation is as follows:
Ring of Fire
Arcane Wave
(switch to earth)
Magnetic Grasp (if there are ranged around)
Earthquake
Churning earth

By the time I get my Churning Earth going, even with the knockdown from earthquake, my hp is half down. I was contemplating on regearing for completely toughness and vitality. Would this help? Any advice or is this something I need to just deal with? Is Orr going to be a “fun” time as a D/D ele?

I dont want to level with staff because I think I’ll be using that at level cap.

Regarding traits, TBH, Ive seen so many threads and advice to go into different trait lines that in my opinion it hardly matters for D/D, even in later levels. I know it is still early and traits do not weigh much yet, but Ive put 10 into Arcana with a cooldown reduction for arcane abilities(I use arcane wave and arcane shield), and the other 10 went into fire, but respecced and put that into earth I believe. The other utility I use is armor of earth…

Advice is appreciated!

Mannn….i remember when i was try to level with d/d was a pain……..tbh sometimes i had to switch to scepter or staff so i could have more range and control the mobs.
As far as i remember D/D will only scale after level 50 or 60 (correct me if Im wrong).
My traits are 0/10/10/20/30…….water can give u some survivability and arcane trait can help u to switch ur attunements faster (as a D/D u will have to swith all attunements as fast as you can).

Maybe I am too low of a level, but I find that anything in water attunment, in terms of healing, is woefully underhwelming. People say it helps and gives you survivability…I switch to water, pop some of the healing abilities and its doing absolutely nothing when I am still getting pounded. A few ticks of +80 HP when I am getting smacked for 200-300 per hit per mob? Kind of useless. I hardly go into water for this reason as I do not find it helpful at all.

Am I doing something wrong?

I dont think so. The true power of that build isnt seen until late
level and good gear.

Early on I stayed in staff build gives max range so u have time to do damage before mobs even get to you. Also use your glyphs that create eles to help you in battle they can serve as tanks for you.

Your equipment plays a big role in your suriviability
with my lvl 80 Ele im working towards this exact build, need 3 more pieces of AC gear and its complete

http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2370-direct-damage-ele

Guess I can give staff a shot again.

Look up daphoenix’s thread on this forum, thats what helped me understand the d/d ele survivability. Here’s a few key points that helped me put the whole playstyle together:

Survivability tips:
Gear for toughness and healing power primarily. Power should be tacked on secondarily.
Your healing ability should be signet of restoration.
5 points in water trait line gives passive regen, this can be quite important for periods of recovery.
10 points in the earth trait line gives earth’s embrace, which adds tons to your survivability.
Use cantrips for utilities. Mist form, Lightning flash, Cleansing fire are the three that I use. Eventually you want to take the 10 point water trait “soothing disruption” to add even more survivability to your cantrip build.

Offensive tips:
10 points in air gives zepher’s boon, which grants fury and swiftness for 10 sec on aura use. As a d/d ele you have 2 auras that you use quite often, so this is a substantial boost to your damage and mobility.
Churning earth is quite a long cast, but don’t stand still while casting it! Use your Lightning Flash utility to teleport behind an enemy or into a group of mobs right before churning earth finishes casting. You can get pretty creative with this utility combo.

Hope this helps!

ive been leveling my ele in pve with d/d and it is not that bad.

the first thing i see you doing is saying splitting stats between toughness and power. vitality is a better stat for pve, at least at that level range. i mean i could change my toughness 150 points and could barely tell the difference in damage i was taking, but 150 vitality nearly doubles your life bar at that level which does actually make a difference. so the first thing i would look at doing is changing toughness to vitality.

the second thing is you are squishy as an elementalist. you have one of the lowest health pools coupled with some of the worst armor in the game.

if you get to start a fight on your terms you can burn down multiple mobs faster than most classes can, but if you get surprised chances are you will take too much damage too fast and your best bet is to just run away and reset the fight.

i mean honestly, i was working on some hearts next to a guardian and ranger last night, and I killed things so much fast than they did it was almost silly… but i was also constantly on the edge of my seat an inch away from dead while they were comfortably plodding along with nearly zero risk of ever dying.

Don’t forget to dodge.