Guild Wars 2

I have a level 40 Ele, and have tried every other class to at least lvl 10, some up to 20. The more I play my Ele the weaker it seems. I always buy the best gear I can and weapons (I’m mainly a staff build, been playing with D/D as well) and was originally running Power/Precision/Crit armor with Vit for my jewels. But since I can play dungeons now I die all the time and don’t seem to be very beneficial to the team and just seem to weight them down. I hate how squishy the Ele’s are and if I go for a Power/Toughness/Vitality build there goes about all my power. I like the guardians a lot and theives seem pretty fun but I guess I’m just wishing the Ele’s were a bit stronger. I’ve looked up tons of posts and Youtube vids on how to play a staff ele and what armor to get and role to play and it seems unless you go glass cannon they don’t seem to be very strong. Any thoughts or advice? I just want to be able to have decent damage along with decent survivability but that doesn’t seem possible with the ele unless you kite A TON. And I don’t want to spend anymore time than I have to on my Ele unless it’ll be worth it later on. Guardians seem pretty solid.

1) It gets much better at level 80.

2) You do not lose all of your power with p/t/v gear if you know how to keep up fury and stack might.

EDIT: 3) Yeah, guardians are pretty solid and kind of nerf-proof.

Elementalists can keep up and surpass other professions but have to work many times harder for that. Basically the bottom line.

the only soldier gear i run is my daggers (so that when i siwtch to staff i lose survivability stats but gain offensive ones) and its the most fun of any of my characters to play in a dungeon

I’ve been running my Ele as my main character since pre-launch and I often use it in dungeons. I personally go with the more offensive style myself. Originally, I got full berserker gear (power main, prec/crit minor). I also worked on soldier’s armor (power main, tough/vit minor) as a swap (planned jewelry but never got). Nowadays, I run full Soldier’s Armor (mix of rare and exotic and poorly runed) with Berserker Trinkets (still soldier back slot, rest berserker). I found that stat combination is amazing for me.
I use a 20/20/10/10/10 trait build (fyi, probably not the best build, but it works for me) and a berserker staff. I get around 35% critical chance and it is the same power either way since both full berserker and soldier/berserker major in power. I found the difference in critical between the two armors is rather minor; at least compared to the vitality and toughness boost. I still keep my berserker set with me in invy incase I want to swap out (e.g. for running around easy areas or dungeons). [Side Note: If I do decide to use full ruby orbs instead of rune of the balefire on berserker set the critical chance will become much better than soldier’s. but the same goes for soldier’s defensive if I use crest of the soldier on it.]

Either way, you will be squishy. The trick is knowing how to deal with that more than traiting and gearing (although I hear bunkers are really hard to kill, but never played one). For example, many times my ele was the last one alive in the dungeon team when we almost got wiped. Why? One of two reasons: 1- I was far casting so I was able to run when things went things were beyond hope of winning (although that is rare, I like to fight to the end XD); 2- Vapor Form, being able to slide away while downed has saved me more times than I can count. In one dungeon recently I used it to get out of the bosses aggro and heal while rest of team died so I could go back and help them without resetting boss.
I really depends on your preference. I also got a level 80 guardian. He can just tank without breaking a sweat. Although no matter what profession I play I miss the versatility of the elementalist. Mainly the swap to water to heal conditions, the chills and cripples, and the far casting and aoe (e.g. when doing AC vs mounds, guardian isn’t nearly as good as ele who has frost bow, lava font, etc).

So if you do want to keep going with ele, it can work well in dungeons. TBH, I could probably run most dungeons in full berserker; but I like my soldiers/berserker to have a bit more safety. Once you learn the dungeon, the weapon, and the profession it gets a lot easier. As a staff ele, I find the key is to try to stay far away when possible and know when I should just stay in fire for damage and when I need to rotate my attunements to help team and hinder foes.
Sorry if this seems a bit overly long and repetitive in some points =P

My favorite thing to do in mmorgps, mobas or games as a whole, is to burst someone down with big numbers.

If it’s aoe, even better.

I run full berserker’s and with over 105% crit damage, ele can be really fun!

Gotta love those 10k damage fire grabs, 6k burning speed or 2.1k (x2) lightning whips

Is it worth leveling an elementalist to 80?

Yes.

If you use a staff in dungeons, you should be aware of the following ways to stay alive:

1. Your skills have range and have a relatively slow attack speed (especially staff auto-attacks). So stand in the back, do not let enemies get close to you. Also, make sure someone else pulls, so you don’t get all the aggro.

2. Many of your AoE skills in Fire, Air and Water are combo fields. Learn what these do, and deploy these for maximum effect by letting other players make combos with their finishers. Also, Earth has 3 combo finishers, so you can even combo with yourself.

3. Never stand still, except to cast channeled spells that require you to stand still. Just moving around (while still trying to keep distance) will prevent many enemies from hitting you.
Also, use your dodge to avoid enemies’ more dangerous attacks. Generally, the more the enemy uses to “signal” its attack, the harder it will hit. Don’t get hit.

4. Use all of your attunements as necessary. Do not limit yourself to “I’m a fire mage, so I only ever use fire skills”. Instead of weapon switches, elementalists get 4 attunements. this means you have 20 skills to choose from.
It’s fine to have a preference for 1 or 2 attunements and to spend most of your time in those, but there will be times when the other attunements will be needed, so you had better know those skills.

5. Glass cannon builds (i.e. those build with none to very little Toughness, Vitality, Healing Power or Boon Duration) generally do not work well in dungeons, because the enemies just hit too hard. That Power/Toughness/Vitality gear is usually a lot better than Power/Precision/Critical %, because even if you deal fewer damage per hit, you get to spend more time actually producing hits, rather than spending time downed or defeated.
It is possible to do well with a glass cannon build in dungeons, just not advisable. The main reason is that a character without any real defenses will have to rely on other group members to not go down. Some groups can handle that better than others, and some players will not tolerate players that need help to stay on their feet all the time.
A high skill level with the elementalist (i.e. being good at not getting hit) also helps in succesfully running a glass cannon build.

6. Do not underestimate Boons. Know which skills and combos at your disposal give which boons, and what each boon does.

7. Use consumables (such as food prepared by a Chef, or oils prepared by a Huntsman) for additional bonuses to your abilities.

@ steelerade.8495,

For my Ele, I stack toughness gear and then mod it with power/vitality gems. Going as a D/D spec since level 1, I find this to be rather easy to level. Typically, I’ll pull 4 targets at a time and then mow them down using a typical Fire 2, 4 then Earth 4, 2 and finally change over to Water if I need any healing. As always, I’ll charge using Air 4 with Air 3 activated. The combined AoE damage with your survivability makes it fairly easy.

I burned out in the mid 40s too and didn’t come back to it for a month or two. It’s been a blast however since coming back and reading daphoenix’s d/d guide and playing accordingly. I too was running staff with a glass cannon like build and additionally wasn’t using all my attunes – just basically playing bad/wrong.

It’s night and day the difference between that and the d/d bunker playstyle – plus the idea that you’re somehow doing less damage is false because of the amount of boons you get (not to mention PVT armor has power as the primary stat so it’s still the same/more power than any other suit).

skinnyb.5920:

1) It gets much better at level 80.

2) You do not lose all of your power with p/t/v gear if you know how to keep up fury and stack might.

EDIT: 3) Yeah, guardians are pretty solid and kind of nerf-proof.

I think you meant warriors. Because guardians have gotten several nerfs since launch.

Moddo.7105:

skinnyb.5920:

1) It gets much better at level 80.

2) You do not lose all of your power with p/t/v gear if you know how to keep up fury and stack might.

EDIT: 3) Yeah, guardians are pretty solid and kind of nerf-proof.

I think you meant warriors. Because guardians have gotten several nerfs since launch.

You have to agree, though, that since the initial nerfs after launch that they’ve remained pretty stable.

Thanks everyone for your great inputs, especially those of you who took the time to write real in-depth details on the Ele. After all your guys’ advice I think I’ll stick with my Ele a bit longer and may try a D/D bunker build which I’ve heard of and seen vids of and just learn to play my class a bit better in that sense. Although I do like the staff build quite a bit so I think I’ll go back and forth between the two. Thanks again you guys.