Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing around lately with my key bindings, and I was wondering what some of my fellow elementalists use? Do you guys have a mouse with a bajillion different buttons that you use? Or have you rearranged your keys on your keyboard? Or have you just left them where they are?

On an unrelated note, I’ve been considering my build lately, and am wondering on your guys’ thoughts when it comes to power vs. condition damage? I am, personally, a D/D elementalist, and was wondering what my fellow D/D-ers preferred. I’m thinking more from a PVP perspective, but I’m interested in both PVE & PVP related answers.

(If it matters, I’m also using a build so far that is heavy in tough & vit. Because I’m very into survivability and honestly, I probably suit a Guardian more, but I just love the playstyle of Ele’s too much, lol.)

So, what are your thoughts, fellow Elementalists?

I use Razer Naga 12 buttons. I love it and cannot imagine playing MMOs without it.

As for power vs condition I posted the same question a while ago.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Berserker-vs-Rampager-for-stuff-ele/first#post396374

I still don’t know which is better. I buffed up cond. dmg and bleeding duration for my rambager gear, and I found with normal mobs, I don’t get full advantage because these mobs die too quickly before bleeding expires, so it’s only get full benefit on dungeon mobs and bosses. Sometimes especially with dungeon bosses, they keep moving and fire AoE skills are not as affective, bleeding is very nice way (I use staff).

Get a Nostromo. You can thank me later for how much it makes your life easier :p

Binding-wise, on the nostromo mine look like this:
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 W 8 9
0 A S D

D-Pad is F1-F4, little round button above the D-pad is F, Space is Space. Pretty much covers all the bases except for a drop weapon binding, but since I don’t use conjures that’s not really that important, and I could bind it to my mouse if I started using them more often.

I run a power/crit D/D build for PvP atm. With so much condition removal in the game I don’t consider it worth investing heavily into though I know some people who feel otherwise (and are probably not wrong – I just prefer the reliability of the burst, rather than risking smart condition removal neutering my damage).

Don’t put too much stock in toughness. You need around 2k toughness to take 33% less damage than you take with 900 toughness. What you give up to raise toughness that high isn’t worth the trade-off in my opinion (unless you’re bunkering I guess, where damage isn’t important). From a damage perspective, your only stat-sacrifice for more toughness is vitality, and if you’re dropping vit for toughness, you have around the same effective survivability anyway. Obviously there are exceptions to that generalization, since you can run numbers on effective healing and all the rest of that jazz, but if you’re simply trying to get as much damage as you can, you don’t really have any places to stack toughness without it costing you damage stats, or vitality.

Personal preference really at the end of the day. A lot of the viable Ele builds are pretty much just shades of grey compared to eachother. A little stat tweak here and a little trait tweak there only really alters the damage:survivability ratio by a little bit. Certainly not as significantly as some other classes. The cool thing about that is that it gives you a bit of wiggle room to lean toward your preferred playstyle while retaining much of the durability/damage of an alternative spec, but the downside is that we don’t really have many builds that are so drastically different from eachother in actual performance.

Frak all those special gaming keyboards/mice. Who needs that?

EDSF – Movement
GTVAY – Weapon skills
Q – Heal
WRC – Utilities
X – Elite
1234 – Attunement switching
Shift+T – Call target
< – Target called out target
Mouse thumb button – dodge

Razer Naga all the way num pad on the side with 11 and 12 being target swap. Scroll Click-weapon swap(for other characters and picked up weapons) First top button shift and second button dodge. I have attunement swap to shift1/2/3/4

I can’t remember all that stuff. Click it for the win.

Thankfully this game does not have that many abilities that needs to be key-bound so we can have the very best for our important ones. Coming from WoW with around 40-50 keybinds this is just so much more enjoyable!

I bought a Nostromo specifically to play GW2. It’s gathering dust in my gadget drawer now. GW2 just doesn’t have enough buttons to warrant a specialized tool. It was handy when I used it during beta, but not a must-have like it is in other games.

As for builds, I’m a fan of condition builds. Everything Arc said is true. Power/Pre is more reliable because you get your damage RIGHT NOW! That said, Power/Cond seems to have better overall AoE damage output and is great for making sure people keep their cleanse and heal skills on cooldown (so when someone bursty hits them they die faster).

It’s all down to preference.

Seeing as how I use all my elements most of the time, I balance power and condition damage. somewhat. That’s also because unlike other professions, the elementalist’s staff build isn’t really built to be either one or the other, but contains a good mix of both. So focusing seems a waste of potential to me.

12345 – weapons skills
Shift+ 1234 – attunments (class specific)
67890 – heal then utility and elite (setup for mouse below)
q – second heal
e – elite

wsad – forward back, strafe left, strafe right

Also use a Corsair Vengeance M90 Mouse

Bottom ring of 4 buttons are attunements
Big button in the middle is heal
Foward most button and then around the top are utilities
And the button above the big one is auto run

The 2 beside left click is profile change, left right and middle are default

I usually use a mix of Shift 1234 and the corsair buttons for attunment swapping (the back buttons are hard to hit at times)

I mostly use the mouse for utility (the forward most and top button are my oh crap buttons, the one in the middle is whatever else I need and the 789 are hard to press when playing dagger dagger)

Since I don’t like removing my hand from the W, A, S, D keys to activate a skill, or from the mouse for that matter, mine look like this.

Elemental attunements: 1, 2, 3, 4
Weapon skills: Q, E, R, C, Mouse 4
Healing skill: Shift+D
Utility skills: Shift+E, Shift+R, Mouse 5, Mouse 3

Ljiona.9142:

I can’t remember all that stuff. Click it for the win.

I am not alone after all. [breathes heavy sigh of relief]

I bought a Naga Hex for TERA and I can’t imagine playing a game without it now. It’s the one with only 6 side buttons in a hexagonal pattern with a nice thumb rest in the middle. Just the right amount of extra buttons and they are all easy to reach. So weapon skills are bound to mouse side buttons 1-5 and my healing/utility/elite are regular keyboard 1-5. Also it puts less stress on your left hand if you can put a few keybinds on the mouse.

As far as keybinding vs clicking I made the switch to keybinding before I even got the mouse but it’s ony made it easier with it. I personally feel more comfortable playing with keybinds because you can react quicker and get into the game more. Instead of worrying about having to look down to the UI to click something, you can just focus on using the right skills at the right time, dodging, whatever. You feel freer and memorizing the keybinds is not all that hard in this game since there are so little keys to start with. But in other games if you start keybinding from level 1 and just learn slowly as you level up and slowly gain new skills, it’s much easier. Your hands start to memorize the keys. It’s like playing the piano or any instrument, or learning to type. Do it enough and muscle memory kicks in, so for anyone thinking they can’t do it you can. Just start small and keep practicing.

to keep it simple.

~=earth
r=water
Mouse 5 (Shoulder 2)=fire
Mouse 3 (Scroll button)=wind
Mouse 4 (Shoulder 1)=heal

The rest is just what ever.

WASD for the movement, space for dodge and alt for jump.
XCFRE for weapon skills and
Utilities/elite are under XCFE + shift modifier
for heal i use Q and for focus target assist i use TAB.
Other target keys i need are usually under number keys.

I use 5 button mouse.
So 4 attunement swaps are
middle mouse/middle mouse + shift
and mouse 4/mouse 4+ shift
Mouse 5 is teamspeak.

If your comfortable using modifier keys, you don’t really need “100 key mouse” xD

This is what i usually do – higher the priority of the power the easier access i want to have for it. So less important stuff goes under number keys as they are not that comfortable to use while strafing. Little more important stuff goes under modifier+"x" keys. Important stuff are around WASD and “Key” abilities go on the mouse.

As D/D ele with a razer naga –
May seem a weird set up to you but is now like an extension of my arm –
Thumb pad numbers –
1 – Lightning Flash cantrip
2 – Earth attunement
3 – Arcane Wave
4 – skill 2
5 – skill 1 (auto attack)
6 – skill 3
7 – skill 4
8 – Air attunement
9 – skill 5
10 – Elite
11 – Water attunement
12 – Heal

Middle Mouse button – Fire attunement.

This set up places all of my attunements down the middle of the thumb pad/mouse, which is very intuitive to me. I rebound skills 1-5 as I find the top row of naga thumb pad keys the hardest to reach. Works great for me, and as others have said, I can’t imagine playing an mmo without a Naga anymore.

Just Logitech G700 mouse. The 4 side buttons are just perfect (+3 on top left). Still a bit heavy for gaming mouse but I got used to it and now feels great.

4 side buttons for F skills (for Mesmer as well) The 3 buttons are for utility.

Razer Naga Hex
shift = dodge
Q-E-R-F – all 4 attunements
mousebutton 1-5 are spells 1-5
mousebutton 6 is teleport (smart ha, fast targetting makes this a reflex :P)
1-3 are utility skills 1-2 (teleport is on utilityskill 3/mousebutton6)
2 is heal

for your D/D. Well, tbh both condition as well as power works fine for D/D, both great stats. But if you are also stacking toughness and vitality and are all about survivability, condition might work out better.

But again, its about “what do you want to kill”.
You want to kill warriors, guardians,thiefs,rangers… condition works better
you want to kill mesmer,elementalist,necromancer,engineer … direct dmg usually works better.

I would yust get your pvp gear ready and try both kinds out do a match of 5 and see what stuff you find more suitable for your goal

Wish i could say more, but im a staff user :P

I have a Razer Naga, but I don’t use nearly as many buttons as I do in other MMO’s

- ESDF for movement instead of WASD which frees up an extra column on the left side
- Attunements : R (fire), Shift+R (Water), W (Air), Shift+W (Earth)
- Skills : Naga —> But2 (1), Shift+But2 (2), Alt+But2 (3), But5 (4), Shift+But5 (5)
- Util : Naga --> But1 (Heal), But4 (Util1), But6 (Util2), But3 (Util3)
- Elite: Naga —> Alt+But3
- Autorun : 3
- Dodge : V
- Weapon Drop / Change Weap : A
- Interact : G

I have a standard keyboard and a 5 button mouse with the standard right/left/middle scroll, and a thumb button and a pinky button.
I use WASD where A and D are strafe left and right. I just completely disable keyboard turning.
Skill 1 – Q
Skill 2 – E
Skill 3 – R
Skill 4 – F
Skill 5 – Z
Healing Skill – C
Util 1 – ctrl+R
Util 2 – ctrl+F
Util 3 – ctrl+V (this is what my pvp trinket in wow was bound to)
Elite – thumb mouse button
Swap Weapons – pinky mouse button (you know, for when you pick crap up accidentally)
1-4 are my attunement swaps. I’m not super comfortable with this since 4 is a bit far for me, but I’m getting more used to it.
Autorun – ~
Assuming a natural resting position with ring/middle/index finger on ASD, this will keep all your keys within 1.5 inches. Since my hands are on the small side, this is extremely helpful.

As for gearing…I run an uncommon build and spec (at least I can’t find anyone else that thinks it’s a good idea). I have full Carrion gear (pow/vit/cond) along with undead runes for toughness and condition damage. I have 30 Earth, 20 Water, 30 Arcane now, but I go back and forth between that and 30 Earth, 30 Water, 20 Arcane. I primarily use a staff, but I have exotic daggers and a scepter as well.

I also have a full zerkers set, but glass cannon didn’t suit me and I died way too much. I like this build because I have a lot of survivability and I can still output some damage if I’m really smart about my snares and AoE placement. With all the AoEs I have, I have also found that I can “corral” people in an open field. I don’t do any damage, but it allows my teammates to push back a force. It’s amazing how good people are at moving away from red circles, I just use it to my advantage.

Some downsides to my build, I’m pitiful at killing anyone 1v1 unless I remember to take my staff off before running around. I can still run away from anyone 1v1, but I hate doing that. I don’t see the large numbers in fire that I saw on with my zerker set. AoE placement is everything, and that takes some time to learn and I’m still learning.

I have a lot of fun with it. I can only play 6ish hours a week so I have to make it count when I do. In an average hour of wvw against even competition I usually net 5-7 badges and die between 0-1 times. Usually I only die when I over extend myself because I’m dumb.

Attunement Swaps: F1, F2, F3 and F4.
Weapon Skills: 1, 2, 3 and 5.
Slot skills: Q, E, F, V and R.
Strafe: A and D.
Interact: G
Dodge: Shift
180º Turn: Mouse 4.
Weapon Swap: Mouse 5.

Logitech G600 – It’s like the NAGA, but better IMO. Keypad feels nicer with inclined thumb buttons, you get a third mouse button for your ring finger (index and middle are on the standard left/right buttons), and the mousewheel can be pushed both left and right for two more buttons.

1 – 6 : Default, but using the mouse side keypad with thumb
Shift 1-4 : Attunement swaps, shift pressed with left pinky, numbers with mouse thumb
Q, E, Z : Utility skills
Shift-Spacebar : Elite
Third Mouse : Dodge (right hand ring finger)

Mousewheel click : Call Target
Mousewheel Right : Weapon Swap (for other toons obviously)
Mousewheel Left : Highlight objects

Shift=Dodge
Z,X,C,V= attunement
F= Use
Q, E, R, T Utilities
Extra Mouse button = Heal
1-5 Skills as usual
WASD= movement as usual

I’ve practically mastered D/D elementalist to a very high degree. I can play any class that requires lots of positioning such as thieves to a very high degree as well.

Here’s my thread in case you haven’t seen it (30,000 views / largest thread on forum)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tanky-DPS-Elementalist-Videos-included-updated-110-28/page/5#post597249

Standard keyboard with mouse that has 2 extra buttons used by the thumb. No need for fancy stuff, simplicity is best.

Attunement swap: f1,f2,f3,f4
Weapon skills, 1,2,3,4,5
Utility heal skill: 6
Utility and elite skills Z,X,C,V in place of 7,8,9,0 respectively
Look backwards: Q
Dodge: E
Target nearest enemy: Mouse 4 (thumb button)
Target next enemy: Mouse 5 (other thumb button)
Tab: Talk on Vent/ teamspeak/ raidcall /voice programs
Everything else is left the same

Options
http://imgur.com/XHbw0
As seen in picture, make sure you
Turn off autotargeting as this will screw up your RtL
Turn on stop autotargeting on target change: This will destroy your element of suprise in some cases
Turn off melee attack assist: You rely on confusing your enemy with movement displacers, and your melee range hit box is greater than that of melee warriors / guardians/ etc.
Turn off double tap to evade: There has been too many times to which I accidently dodged when I did not attend to. Having E as the only dodge solves this issue
Turn on skill recharge: This is VITAL. Elementalist rely heavily on CD’s, you should know when your attunement and skills are ready.

Other special D/D keyboard tactics:
Ride the lightning:
Deselect your target by double clicking the screen right before pushing RtL. You can alternatively hold “w” and press “escape” at the same time followed by RtL.

Burning speed:
Burning speed is dictated by the direction to which your character is facing. It is determined by your camera panning while holding right click

Lightning flash:
In order to execute lightning flash properly onto higher grounds, you need a clear visual line of sight relative to your character to use it properly. There must also be no obstacles in your way from your position to the target position
——————————————————
Quick ambush techniques:
When ambushing an enemy chasing you, quickly hold right click and pan your camera around, followed by “mouse 4” for nearest target. Using “about face” does not work when your holding right click, so I recommend not using this keybind as it tends to overcomplicate things.

My tactic for a quick turn around ambush engagement is the following:
Step 1. Hold “w” to run away
Step 2. Pan your camera (move your mouse right)
While panning your camera do the following:
Step 3. Hold “a” for half a second
Step 4. Hold “s” to backpedal
Step 5. Start engaging your enemy and using weapon skills

Alternative, you can switch steps 2 and 3 when panning the screen in the other direction.
Step 2. Pan camera (move mouse left)
Step 3. Hold “d” for half a second

Between Steps 4 and 5, you can alternatively change backpedaling “s” into “d” and “a” kiting. Backpedaling right after the quick turn around helps you align yourself correctly.

“About Face” key is only good for juking / escaping, it is bad for ambush engagement tactics. I haven’t really mastered this key for juking/ escaping, but it is a great way to juke melee attackers / backstabbing thieves

General camera tactics:
Always pan camera holding right click when casting channeling abilities
Press Q occasionally when running away to see who’s chasing you and so you can dodge quick initiation attacks
Hold left control and left alt while panning around with right click to find where your enemies / allies are.
——
I’ll probably upload a user’s guide to advanced PvP tactics / videos in this thread when I have time this weekend / next weekend. This is just a general overview of the most common tactics that I employ

My keybinds:

Attunements: F-keys

Weapon skills: 1-2-3-4-5

Heal: Q

Utilities: E Z X C (I used < before Halloween patch which is left of Z on my keyboard layout)

Use: F

Dodge: double tap

WASD to move, mouse wheel for healing, mouse 5 for dodging (MX518), 12345 for weapon skills, QERZ for utilities + elite, XCV button 6 for attunements. Not optimal by a long shot, but I’m fast enough that it doesn’t hold me back in the least, and I don’t want to learn new binds.