Guild Wars 2

I have a lvl 80 elementalist that I’m comfy with; not great, just comfy. I’m in the camp that says elementalists need some help (though I think a lot of it would be fixed by a pass through the traits), but honestly I can do a bunch of stuff in one build that others can’t.

But I’m at a loss how to help a young (l23) elementalist. I said “just try some obvious combos, like air4, f1, fire4, fire5…then add more buttons. Try a few different things and you’ll get the hang of it.”

I got back “but where’s the survivability…how do you fight multiples?”

At my level, I’m dagger/focus, and have a bunch of traits that help me survive. But how do I teach all that to someone who’s lvl 23? They can’t really have a build at that point.

-Jeff

P.S. This person has a l60 or so ranger, so it’s not inexperience.

tell him to fight level 25 content. learn by fire.
And do AC at 30.
course… thats also a recipe for rage quit.

Teach him that elementalist live by the spark and die by the sword. Strong emphasis on dieing by the sword as it will happen a lot.

To make money, hide behind others and cast AoE damage, try to hit each monster once and let others kill them off. This works great for me as a level 80 ele.

Staff,Staff,Staff,Staff and nothing else,its one of the most boring and mind numbing weapons in the game,but it gets the job done for 90% of PvE content-hell,most mobs you can just circle kite and use air auto-attack.Build for power then vit/tough.
Other than that my suggestion is roll something else-the ele is in a sad,sad place atm and doesn’t look like it will be changing soon.

I struggled to get anywhere from levels 27-45 when I first leveled my ele – not a whole lot of a build (or at the time people in my level range doing DE) so I took the WvW strategy to PvE. People say to hide behind others and deal damage…

In Fields of Ruin there’s a heart just oustide Ebonhawke in which you repel the Charr renegades and Separatists, and you fight alongside the Ebon Gurad. NPCs tank really well and even at level 27 I could do enough in that zone to get xp (and bonus xp for being lower level).

Same thing can be said about Blazeridge Steppes, when you zone in from Fields of Ruin to the strip of branded land there’s a heart to stop branded and help investigate ascalonian ghost stuff, the Sentinels that roam out there (at the time) could drop to 0 health and just heal themselves to full and keep fighting… and if that’s not a good NPC tank I don’t know what is. Also started that region about level 37 for the bonus XP until I learned the pattern of the branded attacks and could start participating in the DE for Steeleye whatever…

I really like S/D (lvl 30 at the moment) actually. They have to learn to swap between elements, it’s our bread and butter. And try to do as many group events as possible, because ele’s can contribute a lot in that area and get protection from others at the same time.

I soloed mostly to 30+ using scepter/focus. i only use staff when im in a group where I am not going to get near a mob and thats just so i can feel supporty and lazy.
AC was great with scepter/focus. got complimented on my healing which was done primarily comboing off of other fields.
I dont use dagger much as its too close up for comfort and the invulnerability in focus is a nice get out of jail card along with the other control effects.

between the blinds, knockdowns, invulnerability, and arcane shield i can kill mobs without taking a point of damage and without running around like a headless chicken.

Thanks for the suggestions. It’s funny, I’ve tried D/D & S/D with good success, and use the staff in some situations in WvW. I then moved to D/F in Orr.

Never once did I consider S/F, the obvious combo. :-)

Tell him to pick up scepter/dagger and enter fights with lightning, firefielding and nuking in fire and then finished it off in earth with a knockdown and churning earth. This is basic and once he has gotten a hang of that he will understand at a much higher level how elementalists work.

Also tell him its kill or be killed out there, pulling many mobs means you need to nuke them down fast before its too late.

Learn to dodge and move and click on the ground quickly.

I ended up destroying a ghost camp on my own after it killing me out the 1st time. I just kept moving and switching my elements to use as many skills as possible and healing.

/agree with Paulus here. The Focus is such a great weapon because it allows the Elementalist to avoid damage, but, since other offhand weapons don’t nearly as much, a player has to avoid damage by dodging and moving.

imo ya have to know where the skills for chill, immobilize, cripple, and such are on the weapons. That allows us to move and put distance between us and the slowed mobs. There are very nice skills that will port or move us at good speed away from mobs. All our skills are ranged anyway and we can’t take melee damage in light armor.

Summoning an elemental can draw one heck of a lot of agro. The earth elemental does a very decent job of tanking.

Kiting is much more difficult than it was before, now that more skills are “working as inteneded” lol, not that is was super easy to begin with.

Controling the number of mobs with good pulls makes a big difference. Knowing their agro range etc. Some skills will pull less mobs than others.

Eating food will help for buffs to vitality and such.

Oh, and then there’s Battery’s way. Very effective and especially satisfying.

I leveled with glass cannon scepter/dagger all the way to 80, using staff for events.

It was very much a “kill or be killed” spec like the others mention. You basically relied on the mobs dying in your knockdown + combo fields to ramp up damage.

I forget some of the skill names but for the most part, circle strafing mobs until they are together, then doing a Ride The Lightning, Updraft →FIRE ATTUNEMENT→ Ring of Fire, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix combo destroys most mobs if you have equivalent level gear.

If they don’t die from that, swap to EARTH and throw up another ground stomp + earth AOE. Taking advantage of the earth protection while finishing them off.

At 80 I changed my playstyle to staff with full healing / toughness / power / vitality type gear. I have a mix of the healing gear from karma vendors + the crafted healing set. I’ll have to check the exact spec… I’m fairly certain it is 10 Air, 30 Arcana 30 Water. Basically I am able to tank about 6-8 of the Cursed Shore and Malchor’s Leap mobs by simply element swapping and keeping boons + heals rolling. I also have full dwayna rune set which helps.

This spec is also great for support in groups whether it’s pvp, wvwvw or pve… Lots of fun. Might take you a little longer to kill things, but you will feel unstoppable.

And the best part is farming orichalcum nodes, tossing heals and letting 8 mobs beat on you while you farm the node and move on with full health.