Guild Wars 2

I’m relatively new to gw and newer even still to elementalists. The way that I’ve been playing is:
Pve- dagger/dagger// fire attuned as much and for as long as possible. Focus on putting and keeping the mob(s) burning. Switch to water if low hp becomes an issue, utilizing heals/ slows. Air for control/debuffs and shield. Earth for sustained life while I can swap back to fire putting bleeds on as many mobs as possible until the atunment is possible. I mostly focus on fire, as I said and lament switching to anything else unless its to support team-play/events.
Wvwvw: lolstaff// focus mostly on debuffing opposing team while buffing mine. Heals- lots. Earth for dots. I mainly try to either support zergs or try to sustain walls/doors/groups in water while laying out sustained aoe dmg.
Spvp- no plans, no experience.

I enjoy pve the most on dbl dagger and want to focus heavily on pve/dungeons when at endgame. Does this mindset still work then or will I likely be underperforming due to being focused more heavily on fire damage? I’d rather ask now than make it to 80 and the toon be a waste of everyone’s time.

I’ve been switching on/off what profession I want to main between Ranger, ele, Mesmer, necromancer(to some degree). Just trying to decide the most optimal path for me and asking for advice from the ele community. Thanks.

What you might want to do is to try all combinations of weapons in PVE/leveling, just to get acquainted with all of the different abilities that they offer.
D/D is fun, S/D is fun also, Staff is underwhelming when leveling but it can still be effective.
Also make sure your gear stats complement your build so you can maximize your playstyle.
I started out with a Staff when I first made my toon, then at 18-ish used D/D until level 40-ish, then S/D until 55, and I’m now back to Staff just to keep myself fresh.
I’m currently lvl 70, and have leveled up solo the entire time.

Honestly, you’ll have trouble at high levels going D/D in dungeons unless you spec condi-damage/toughness/vit (which is hard to gear for)

In terms of ‘maximising damage’ then you don’t need to dance per-say, but you do need to be swapping to maximise your ability to access powerful abilities. For example you might start in Water and spam Vapor Blade, swap to Fire, do the burst, swap to Earth and lay down lots of bleeds etc etc.

Honestly, you’re on the right track, just keep playing.

You can also read this comprehensive guide
Link

I always keep a staff around because nothing beats its support/heals in group content. But I focus on dagger/dagger and I’m quite good with the finesse of the play style of it. My gear priority is power=condition damage>precision>crit damage. Been thinking of a spec along the lines of 30-0-20-0-20 for damage and survival. As to the lack of crit I realized I don’t need to focus on crits to keep my targets burning utilizing the lower CDs on fire abilities will keep them in flames aplenty.

D/D in dungeons is just dangerous because mobs do very high damage and you get a lot less time to react when they turn on you. Elementalists already aren’t the sturdiest (especially if you go fire heavy) so D/D will get downed a lot.

D/D water auto attack does have the advantage though that you can very easily stack vulnerability, but just standing there auto attacking is probably pretty boring. You’re also pretty low on AoE abilities, which is one of the few areas an Elementalist really shines.

S/D allows for the most effective might stacking. You got Flame Ring, which is one of the biggest fire fields and then Dragon Tooth, Phoenix, Arcane Wave, Earthquake as finishers to get 12 stacks of area might. (Yes Churning Earth also is a blast finisher, but you usually won’t make it in time. Perhaps with Fire Field trait? Never tried that.) Problem is just that you have to be pretty close to the enemy. It’s also the only field you have with S/D which is a shame. Other than that you got pretty decent single target damage, a bunch of blinds and fast casting vulnerability available. Bleeds other classes do better and you can’t stack em beyond 25 stacks, so usually not worth it. Your support healing is also very limited.

Then you could use a Focus as offhand, which lets you keep the flame field, but makes it into a small line, so generally more annoying to pull of combos with. You keep the blast finishers (one moved to water though) and gain better defensive abilities with a 4s immunity, a projectile protection and a projectile reflect. Can be useful against certain mobs with slow firing hard hitting projectles (CoE anyone? >.<).

Last, but not least, the staff. The weapon that’s generally seen as choice for support. The reason is quite simple, you got loads of fields available. A fire field, 2 water fields (combine them with blast finishers for AoE healing), an ice field (can be nice for ice armor or stacking chilled) and a lightning field which with a projectile user can stack quite a bit of vulnerability. You do only have 1 blast finisher, but an auto attack projectile finisher which can be pretty useful. In general staff is seen as better support since your heals have range and create fields. You can cast a Geyser under the boss and any projectile finisher will grant regeneration. (I’ve given up trying to heal people with Geyser directly, constantly moving and them generally ignoring it means it doesn’t heal a lot :P). You also got the most AoEs to clean out annoying packs of mobs and the longest range, which means in general the most time to react and thus you also stay alive longer.

About traits, I’d advise at least Earth 10 and Arcane 10 to get the 2 survival traits (Armor of Earth at 50% hp and Arcane Shield at 25%) if you plan to stay with a lot of fire. If you focus more into water for extra support you can skip the Arcane Shield, but I’d still trait Arcane for the buffs on attunement switching, generally faster attunement switching and some other pretty neat traits. Those cooldowns are lifesavers when you suddenly got stuff turning on you and you can’t react fast enough to pop your own defensive cool downs.

Sorry about the wall of text, but hope it helps a bit :P

For PvE no one can tell you how to really play if you’re just solo in the world, but for dungeons, I’d have to say go staff for ranged AOE. But as for the title, a lot of Elementalist damage now comes from self combos and attunement switching.
Examples being our Finishers, Blast from Arcane Wave (utility), Earthquake and Churning Earth (earth dagger 4 and 5), Comet (water focus 5), Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix, (fire specter 2 and 3), Eruption (earth staff 2) and Magnetic Wave (earth focus 4).
Leap from Magnetic Grasp (earth dagger 3).
Projectile from Arcane Blast (utility, and yes misleading name), Stone Shards and Hurl (earth scepter 1 at 20% chance and 2 in the second half of the sequence), and Stoning and Shockwave (earth staff 1 and 5).
Finally for finisher’s Whirl from Tornado (elite).
Blasts give AOE boons or conditions depending on the field. Leap gives auras (normally ele only but some professions can use them this way), random boons, or single target conditions. Projectile gives conditions to all enemies the projectile passes through, or regen/condition removal (from Water and Light respectively). Whirl gives the same as Projectile but to completely random targets that are in range, the “bolts” go off in straight lines in random directions. As for fields, we get fire (burning and might), water (regen), ice (frost armor and chill), and technically the only lightning field (swiftness, vulnerability and dazing). Hope this helps.

If you spec into fire and air, then you really don’t need to juggle attunements much. It’s more for convenience than for optimal performance. For example, you get hurt and you want to heal up ASAP, so you drop into water to do that and switch over to a more DPS friendly element like air (while fire is on cool down).

I play pretty much exclusively with the Staff.

In (solo) PvE, I feel stancedancing is just a matter of efficiency. I mostly stick to Fire attunement, because there’s no real rush. During tougher fights you have to stancedance, though. You need the heals and control that Fire doesn’t offer.

In WvW I mostly stick to air, in order to buff guildmates with speed (if you have Arcane Wave as a blast finisher, you have two AoE swiftness buffs, which is tremendously usefull). When we’re in actual combat, I rotate attunements to make sure all my big AoE spells are constantly on cooldown. I don’t really focus on damage dealing, but more on area denial and support. IMO, that’s currently what the Elementalists are really good at.

I wouldn’t say that it’s ‘required’ by any means. However, to fully utilize the class and it’s mechanics I think you need to switch very often.

I play D/D almost all the time (pve, spvp, and a lot in wvw with some staff too). How I’m speced (currently) is 30/20/20 Earth/Water/Arcana. Sure this gives me a lot of defensive, but the ele is the weakest class in terms of base health AND armour class.

In dungeons I’ll use D/D (unless I absolutely need range and I’ll go to staff) and I do just fine. In fact, a lot of times I’ll be the last one standing. I’m only able to do this through the use of tune-dancing. I’m not in 1 attunement for more than a handful of spells (say 3-5).

No one forces you to tune-dance, and I don’t think it’s a ‘must do’ thing. But, I do think to be a more effective player you would need to learn how and the chains you can do with all of the spells. Not everyone is that hardcore of a player, so not everyone will play ele the same. Find a play style you like and enjoy. Cheers~

To quote Kosh: Yes.