Guild Wars 2

Hey so i recently made an ele but i only got him up to about level 11. I was really enjoying him, but i could not stand the weakness of the character. I preferred d/d only because the staff did not seem to do enough damage. I really wanna like this character, any advice to keep playing him?

Play him to level 15 so you can put 5 points in water. Water gives you vitality which is really helpful at low level because you are squishy with zero health pool, so all the health you can get the better. Also 5 points in water regenerates health when you are attuned to water, so you’ll notice you can take an extra hit or two which usually lets you kill a mob or escape in time, where you were just downed before. At level 20 if you get more comfortable, you can respec and put your 10 points into Arcane and choose the talent that grants boons when you switch attunements. Just switchign to water will heal you, and just switching to earth will reduce damage by 33% for a few seconds. All of it adds up and you start to realize you can survive much better than before.

Also get Arcane Shield for a skill point. I use it offensively by running right into a pack of monsters, popping it and then charging up a Churning Earth if you are using dagger off-hand. Mobs won’t touch you while you sit in the middle and churning earth alone will kill everything it hits.

Don’t get discouraged, without any talent points and very few skill points so far, you can’t really defend yourself, but you’ll notice a difference at level 15, then 20 and so on. Vitality is your friend more than toughness to start out.

Also it looks like you are concerned about low damage to start. It sortof feels that way to start but as I mention above, churning earth is my favorite skill ever, so land that whenever possible and you’ll be doing crazy amounts of damage.

To squeeze more damage out, try to utilize combo fields. When going D/D, Use Fire 4 for the ring of fire, then trigger Arcane Wave in it and it will count as a combo finisher, granting you might for more damage. You can then quickly switch to earth and use earthquake then churning earth for 2 more combo finishers, and even more stacks of might. All of this is available right out of the gate at low level, so try to use your blast finishers in your fire fields for a damage boost.

Hey thanks guys for responding, so i think ill go try him out again and what weapon should i use? I was really stumped on that when i played. I kept switching before every battle or enemy. And do you guys have a preferred race for an ele?

Jacksonxxxxxx.4930:

Hey thanks guys for responding, so i think ill go try him out again and what weapon should i use? I was really stumped on that when i played. I kept switching before every battle or enemy. And do you guys have a preferred race for an ele?

D/D or staff is most common in PvE (i prefer D/D… but always keep a staff in your inven)
focus is a horrible mess of a weapon (except for projectile defense in earth/air)
scepter is… odd… i recall someone stating that the playstyle will make your brain melt… and i have to agree… its just… not fun

asura have some really nice D/D animations… but the dagger models are so small i went human

I’d actually suggest giving Scepter/Dagger a try. It gives you a good mix of offense, defense, and mobility, plus you can kite more easily with the Scepter’s range. Scepter has slower animations but that’s fine for PvE since the monsters don’t bother to dodge.

Glyph of Lesser Elementals really helps too. As soon as you have a summonable tank to hide behind, the profession becomes a lot more forgiving. The elite skill Glyph of Elementals is just as much of a gamechanger since its Earth elemental is basically unkillable when facing most mobs.

Eles are really bad at low levels. All professions get better with traits but none moreso than the ele.

You don’t have to level all the way up in pure water/arcane if you don’t want, but 15 in water (Healing ripple) and 10 in arcane (elemental attunement) really make the ele play a lot better.

patience… it’s worth it… lol, some of us who rolled ele early, it took a long time for us to figure out using our combo fields and boon management because we didn’t have the guides on this site to read through If you like the playstyle but feel squishy, then stick it out, it’ll get much easier.

haha thanks guys. I think im gonna keep playing my ele with d/d .. ill just have to get better lol

D/D or S/D also rely on killing enemies as quickly as possible. When they are dead, they can’t kill you. Here’s a very popular burst sequence for the eles:

S/D:
(Air Attunement) Ride the Lightning -> Updraft (-> Air #2 and #3, which are instant) -> (Fire Attunement, while running towards your enemy) -> Dragon’s Tooth -> Ring of Fire (-> Arcane Wave utility if you want it) -> Phoenix -> Fire Grab -> (Earth Attunement) -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth (-> Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash, Earth Armor, any defensive utility that might protect you while casting it, if you want it).

This will keep foes disabled for half the time (updraft, earthquake), will allow you to deal a LOT of damage very quickly (you will probably kill most foes without completing that sequence), and get a lot of stacks of the Might Boon if you cast Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Arcane Wave, Earthquake and Churning Earth inside the field Ring of Fire.

Here’s the D/D equivalent:
(Air Attunement) Ride the Lightning -> Updraft -> (Fire Attunement) -> Burning Speed -> Ring of Fire (-> Arcane Wave utility if you want it) -> Drake’s Breath (here, you decide if you want to watch the entire animation for the full effect, or cast the next skill right after and interrupting half of this skill’s length) -> Fire Grab -> (Earth Attunement) (-> Magnetic Grasp to apply burning within the fire field, if you want it) -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth (-> Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash, Earth Armor, any defensive utility that might protect you while casting it, if you want it).

They might seem hard to memorize, or complicated when looking at this post, but they are actually quite simple and intuitive once you try them in the game. This should speed up your pve progression significantly. Here’s a simplified version of D/D’s sequence, without the notes and the optional skills, if you find the above example too hard to memorize:

Ride the Lightning -> Updraft -> Burning Speed -> Ring of Fire -> Drake’s Breath -> Fire Grab -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth.

But remember, this sequence won’t always be optimal, especially against stronger enemies, and you’ll have to improvize it several times in several situations. But it’s excellent to start with.

Dont go on advice.. just play it and go with your gut .

I played mine for 4 months to a high degree of efficacy then suddenly realized I dont enjoy the class.

Ive since deleted the ele and gone on to have a blast elsewhere.

Also: live in the mists long enough to know whether you ll like any class long-term… save yourself all the heartache of getting to 80 THEN realizing its not for you.

Asura ele gets radiation field, very nice if you have no other way to apply poison and weaknesss in AOE

Punkins.2087:

save yourself all the heartache of getting to 80 THEN realizing its not for you.

how do you get class to 80 before realising you dont like it? >.>

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Punkins.2087:

save yourself all the heartache of getting to 80 THEN realizing its not for you.

how do you get class to 80 before realising you dont like it? >.>

Hey, I did it with the Warrior. ;P

Sometimes things just get boring. I find my Ele, however, super fun to play. PvP is no longer boring, it actually feels great.

Hopefully i will have fun with the ele… so do you guys think it’s worth ranking up even though its tough to learn and play?

Don’t let the difficulty stop from playing it. In fact, it’s the way the ele plays that so makes so many people enjoy it. Experiment with it, and see if it sticks.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Punkins.2087:

save yourself all the heartache of getting to 80 THEN realizing its not for you.

how do you get class to 80 before realising you dont like it? >.>

I did that with my mesmer, my ele was quite a struggle to level but at 80 it just became amazing (discovering d/d auramancer may be to blame for the sudden awesome).

Alas with mesmer it continued to suck :p maybe there’s a build that would change mind.

my ele ive been working on is now 23, I was in that same boat not too long ago.

1. door exploration of all 6 cities. ill gain you a fwe lvls.

2. outfit yourself at lvl 10 and lvl 15 with blues. at 15 you can get green daggers too.

3. learn your kill combos. ride the lightning into a pack, arcane shiel and earth 5, done.

4. speaking of arcane shield. awesome for earth 5, also, arcane blast? the aoe one, great for lvling so far.

5. Cannot stress enough to outfit yourself often from ah. You will likely be every 5-10 lvls re-equiping entire green sets. At least that is my plan

Edewen.8304:

my ele ive been working on is now 23, I was in that same boat not too long ago.

1. door exploration of all 6 cities. ill gain you a fwe lvls.

2. outfit yourself at lvl 10 and lvl 15 with blues. at 15 you can get green daggers too.

3. learn your kill combos. ride the lightning into a pack, arcane shiel and earth 5, done.

4. speaking of arcane shield. awesome for earth 5, also, arcane blast? the aoe one, great for lvling so far.

5. Cannot stress enough to outfit yourself often from ah. You will likely be every 5-10 lvls re-equiping entire green sets. At least that is my plan

Save yourself some moolah and get blues instead of greens. You’ll be fine. That’s what I did… new blues every 6 levels.

Eles suck till around 40 in most cases I’ve found.

I originally went Asura. It was fine (I finally made peace with the goofiness of the look by shrinking the head to a more normal proportion and made the smallest ears I could) but after a while the over the top animations wore on me. All the little leaps on skills or the way whenever you started running you stop yourself from falling over as if the weight of your massive head was going to tip you over just got unbelievably tiresome after a few months. It was great being unbelievably tiny however as I picked the smallest model possible but this just lead to constantly being zoomed out. I also hated the way most staves clipped through the floor cause they weren’t far up on your back and daggers were too tiny to see.

Then I did AC Explorable path 3 and was a human, saw the human animations and rerolled. Never looked back. Took no time at all refarming COF for zerker gear and HOTW/AC for PVT gear. I already had most of the mats for any jewelry I wanted.

Eles suck until you are 80. Then you become subpar, which is a step up. And no I’m not bitter cuz right now I’m rolling a mainstream class (not ele) and it’s the best feeling in the world, bar one.

Hey guys! So i stuck with my ele and im now a level 15 and i think its pretty fun so far. Thanks for the advice!