How to do well with Elementalist?
Which game mode are you talking about?
Is this pve or wvw or what?
Bad Elementalist
PvE. /15 characters.
Bad Elementalist
Leveling?
D/D, points in arcane and water first for the defensive bonuses. Lightning flash, Armor of Earth, Signet of Air. Power focused glass cannon build.
Playing this I facerolled my way to my 40s. At 45, I’ve started dying occasionally to 2-3 mobs.
Essentially, you AoE burst with Fire 3 2 5, then Ring of Fire into a might combo from Earth (I use the Arcane blast finisher as my third utility, and the blast heal, as well as earth 4 and 5). Earth 2 ( Reflect projectiles, cripples, finishes off pretty much any melees standing near you after the burst), then into Air, RTL to any ranged mobs still on you, Air 3 and 5 cc them while you auto them down. Water as needed for healing/chill, rinse and repeat.
At 45 I’m almost constantly sitting on 12-15 Might stacks and I can one shot on level mobs with Fire Grab if they’re burning (implying a non-one shot but whatever).
Also been experimenting with other weapons. S/D feels significantly inferior, /F feels too defense heavy. Staff is fine, particularly for 1 enemy at a time since Fire 2 and autos will take anything down before you even need to move. Against larger groups staff’s damage is harder to land while you’re kiting, but if you can land everything its pretty insane.
What level are you at? Like I said, I’m only 45, if you’re higher than that you might be experiencing problems that I haven’t seen yet.
I’d like some advice. How does one play elementalist well and not die a lot, because right now I feel like elementalist sucks.
you’re not alone on that
Warning: Text fence. T.l,d.r. version at the end.
After leveling one of every other profession to 80, I’ve started trying Elementalist again.
But it seems a lot of the time, I die or otherwise have trouble dealing with enemies that I’d be defeating easier with most of the other professions.
- Armor is focused on vitality, with some mixed trinkets. Despite this, still feeling squishy. Any more than 2 enemies at a time is troublesome, especially if any are ranged.
- On top of being squishy, I don’t seem to hit really hard either if I’m using anything but fire (and sometimes earth).
- Settled on scepter/dagger for now. Dagger/dagger I’d like more, but not great range wise. Staff has a lot of range, but either doesn’t hit hard or the hard hitting moves are just slow. Haven’t used focus at all. Scepter feels really limited to single target most of the time too, the AoEs it does have are slow most of the time.
- Using Signet of Fire for more crit chance, and Signet of Air to move faster. Third utility varies.
- The conjured weapons. I really wanted to like these, and thought I would, since they seemed like engineer kits (which were fun to use). But the conjured charge limit means you pretty much should never use the 1 skill and stick to the others (which gets annoying when they’re all on cooldown and you can’t just switch between the conjured weapon and your regular weapons at will like the engineer can), and the time limit means I feel like rushing to use all the charges (or grab the extra conjure early). In the end, they make me just want to use kits again. Meh. :/
Too long, didn’t read? : I’d like some advice. How does one play elementalist well and not die a lot, because right now I feel like elementalist sucks.
Practice and more practice. Good rotations and dodge roll timings. Pretty much for PvE you want to might stack so learn the rotation well and know what kind of dps your low CD skills do for each attunement. This way you know if you have no conjures or anything up you can at least do some damage using your most damaging attunement spell. Learning to dodge roll well will increase your survivability by leaps and bounds. It is important to get this down as an Ele. Finally check out Dekey’s guide that is sticked on the Elementalist forums. She has a good guide on PvE Ele and you can also watch her videos on youtube. She explains a lot of stuff and what to do as an Ele in Dungeons.
Just move, yeah you know you can cast while you move? Mobs dont do damage to you if they can reach you, dodge the red circles and win, it’s pve it isn’t hard man
You gotta have a specific set of skills like the guy from “Taken". Jokes aside you are judging weapon negatively way too early. In pve all you need is dodge and kite at low lvl or if you are running full glass cannon builds.
Heidia- The elementalist is the #1 most OP profession in this game since beta!
Warning: Text fence. T.l,d.r. version at the end.
After leveling one of every other profession to 80, I’ve started trying Elementalist again.
But it seems a lot of the time, I die or otherwise have trouble dealing with enemies that I’d be defeating easier with most of the other professions.
- Armor is focused on vitality, with some mixed trinkets. Despite this, still feeling squishy. Any more than 2 enemies at a time is troublesome, especially if any are ranged.
- On top of being squishy, I don’t seem to hit really hard either if I’m using anything but fire (and sometimes earth).
- Settled on scepter/dagger for now. Dagger/dagger I’d like more, but not great range wise. Staff has a lot of range, but either doesn’t hit hard or the hard hitting moves are just slow. Haven’t used focus at all. Scepter feels really limited to single target most of the time too, the AoEs it does have are slow most of the time.
- Using Signet of Fire for more crit chance, and Signet of Air to move faster. Third utility varies.
- The conjured weapons. I really wanted to like these, and thought I would, since they seemed like engineer kits (which were fun to use). But the conjured charge limit means you pretty much should never use the 1 skill and stick to the others (which gets annoying when they’re all on cooldown and you can’t just switch between the conjured weapon and your regular weapons at will like the engineer can), and the time limit means I feel like rushing to use all the charges (or grab the extra conjure early). In the end, they make me just want to use kits again. Meh. :/
Too long, didn’t read? : I’d like some advice. How does one play elementalist well and not die a lot, because right now I feel like elementalist sucks.
- Armor: Well I guess I can’t fault you there for wanting more HP. You’re going to be squishy even with Sentinel’s gear, though, so try to focus on not getting hit instead of absorbing blows. You can do this through using blinds, positioning, dodging, and using an elemental to facetank for you.
- Hitting Hard and Weapon Choice: As others have already mentioned, you want to stack might using a fire field and blast finishers, then wreck your opponents. For staff, this uses mainly fire attunement, for scepter, this means using a Lightning Hammer because scepter’s sustained damage is trash, and for mainhand dagger this means attacking in air attunement. More info about weapon skills are in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/3436702 and https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Best-elementalist-LEVELING-build-guide/3816598 (not my topic). Dagger is less melee than you may think – most of the skills have a range of 300, which is farther than melee – giving you the ability to attack and kite melee mobs. Ranged mobs you’re better off LoSing behind a tree or something and bursting if they’re aggroed onto you and not your elemental.
- Slot Skills: Signet of Fire is nice, but when leveling via solo PvE exploration, Glyph of Lesser Elementals and Glyph of Elementals are much nicer in that it gives you something else to draw aggro. Just cast in earth attunement. Glyph of Storms can give you an AoE blind to keep you safe, as well. Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Wave give you blast finishers, which give you might when used in a fire field, which then helps you kill stuff faster.
- Conjures: Lightning Hammer is wonderful. Its auto attack chain blinds enemies and it is pretty hard hitting – so in many situations it’s the only thing you should be using when you have a LH. Fiery Greatsword and Frost Bow are situationally useful in open world, and for them use the burst skills (FGS 3, 4, 5; FB 4, 3) and drop and go back to your weapons.
I know most ppl like 30 points in water better for defense but I’ve always done better with 30 points in arcana for survivability. Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana give me more defense and healing than what I get from 30 in water.
Not saying which is better, just saying don’t be afraid to experiment. I always have 30 in arcana and then switch between 30 in earth and 30 in air depending on what I’m doing and how much I need offense or defense.
The Goderators have ruined this forum for me.
go 30 in fire and kill everything before it reaches you.