Guild Wars 2

I’m just getting started with GW2. I am trying to decide which profession I want to level to 80. I have played most classes to at least level ten and a few to 20. Elementalist seems to be much more difficult to level. I can take on multiple mobs 2 levels above me with a guardian, warrior, and ranger easily just mashing buttons. I can do the same thing with Necro and engineer with a little work. Mesmer and Ele seem to be much squishier. I expected this to a certain degree as they have lower armor etc.. Does it get better as I get to higher levels? Are the classes fairly well balanced at 80?

I mainly want to do sPvP and WvW when done. I am leveling to get familiar with everything a class has to offer and to get some gear for WvW. I would prefer a profession with good balance of ranged damage and survivability when traited. I have played few hot join PvP games with a few classes. I found this didn’t give me a lot of information, as I didn’t know the classes/game well enough to do well.

I just leveled up an Ele. It’s easy as hell once you hit level 40 (Lightning Hammer/Cantrips). Mind numbingly easy.

Sucks before that

Level 40, when you unlock those master traits, is when it gets easier. Using Lightning Hammer is probably the easiest way to level up since you hit hard and auto-blind things with just the auto attack chain, but I would recommend spending time with dagger/dagger and staff if you’re going to focus on WvW and PvP when you feel like you know the class.

Ele are very trait dependent. I’m leveling one currently and every 5 levels it just gets easier. 10 in Arcane for Elemental Attunement and 5 in Water for regen were the 1st things I did. Then I grabbed my Lightening Hammer and Hulk-smashed my way thru Tyria. Keep at it and it’ll get easier.

Also, really learn the weapon skills. Knowing when to swap attunements and for what really increases survivability. Especially with Elemental Attunement trait. Learn what to do when you need active defense, interrupts, heals, damage, kiting, etc.

For instance, (with S/D) Fire 2>4>3 deals damage, burns, and stacks some might, swap to earth and you get protection, #4 for a knockdown & more might, #2 for +armor, swap to air for swiftness to open up distance, #2>3 for spike and blind, swap to water for regen if low on health, then #5>3 for more aoe heals.

My first two characters were Ele and Mesmer. Eles are a Freaking pain to level in pve. They die so often and most of your skills have issues in not really being synergistic with your classes’ attributes. I found that even as a level 80 I wasn’t really effectively wiping out enemy mobs effortlessly. It’s always an uphill battle with Eles.

Mesmers on the other hand handled like a dream, so much easier to kill and survive. Only problem is lack of effective and consistent AoE damage options, and slow slow slow run speed.

Then I rolled a warrior, and I was face rolling mobs without even trying. Lol. What the hell, right?

Use an EXP scroll to instantly get to level 20, then craft to 80. I did it a few days ago on a new toon. It took me less than 4 hours. Incredibly easy.

Ele is a little more complicated than some of the other classes. I would have been pretty overwhelmed if I’d been thrown into it at 80 with no practice beforehand.

Personally, I think leveling via crafting is a bad idea for this class.

Also, my newbie-advice mantra: Glyph of Storms cast in earth is a great survival tool early on.

If you are struggling to pve, you may want to look at other classes for pvp.

Rainshine.5493:

Ele is a little more complicated than some of the other classes. I would have been pretty overwhelmed if I’d been thrown into it at 80 with no practice beforehand.

Personally, I think leveling via crafting is a bad idea for this class.

Lol. EXP scroll to 20 + crafting/storyline to 80 is way better than actually playing the class up to 80. Insta-80, buy full zerk/scholars with tokens you got via other toons, ascended trinkets with laurels/relics/commendations you got via other toons.

This lets you skip Anet’s incredibly boring storyline (fyi, Traherne is the biggest noob in this game) and lets you start playing the meta straight off the bat so you don’t develop bad habits. I got my guard to 80 via EXP scroll + crafting + storyline in less than a day, bought full zerk, specced him 10/30/0/5/25 sword/focus, and started speed runs with my guild that same day. I did the same thing when levelling my thief, only starting playing when I was full zerk, d/d, 25/30/0/0/15. Maybe if more people did this, we wouldn’t see so many noobs in PvE (eg. GS mes, shout-heal or sig war, mace/shield guard, etc.)

Anierna.6918:

Rainshine.5493:

Ele is a little more complicated than some of the other classes. I would have been pretty overwhelmed if I’d been thrown into it at 80 with no practice beforehand.

Personally, I think leveling via crafting is a bad idea for this class.

Lol. EXP scroll to 20 + crafting/storyline to 80 is way better than actually playing the class up to 80. Insta-80, buy full zerk/scholars with tokens you got via other toons, ascended trinkets with laurels/relics/commendations you got via other toons.

This lets you skip Anet’s incredibly boring storyline (fyi, Traherne is the biggest noob in this game) and lets you start playing the meta straight off the bat so you don’t develop bad habits. I got my guard to 80 via EXP scroll + crafting + storyline in less than a day, bought full zerk, specced him 10/30/0/5/25 sword/focus, and started speed runs with my guild that same day. I did the same thing when levelling my thief, only starting playing when I was full zerk, d/d, 25/30/0/0/15. Maybe if more people did this, we wouldn’t see so many noobs in PvE (eg. GS mes, shout-heal or sig war, mace/shield guard, etc.)

The difference is you can faceroll with close to zero class experience as a guardian or thief, it works differently for an elementalist, but you should know that already.

When I first started GW2, I watched some youtube videos and felt that ele was right for me, so it was my first character. It has been my main ever since, and is still my favorite class!

I will say, I remember being a brand-new character and leveling ele, and it is very difficult until you can get a few traits (water V – cleansing wave, the 15-point water trait, elemental attunement – arcana V, and renewing stamina – arcana VI) that REALLY help with survivability.

I also originally found it difficult to learn the attunement dance and when to swap each time. It helped me at first to group skills into like-categories: AOE damage, crowd-controls (for slowing down enemies), healing, movement skills, etc.

Play with whatever weapon-set you most prefer, but I have most fun with D/D. It is very in-your-face and you need to learn to dodge a lot, but is very fun to play! You can look up old videos from “daphoenix” on youtube, that while dated, still show excellent gameplay that you can try to emulate.

If melee isn’t for you, s/d is a very good choice, although even more skill-spammy. You can do some very good burst-damage, which makes surviving easier in pve (killing things fast is often better than trying to stay alive forever), but doesn’t handle large groups as well. S/D also has a couple of nice heals in water.

If you are having trouble with projectiles keeping you down, S/F is an option (Focus has some really strong defense). However, this deals really poor damage and is mostly useful later-on in dungeons and higher-level play.

Staff is pretty hard at early levels b/c landing a lot of attacks can be difficult. One neat “trick” with staff. Earth 2 (eruption) takes a long time to activate. You can actually lay it on top of a mob to start a fight, and they won’t aggro until it pops. Even better, if you lay that down, then swap to fire, and lay down lava font (fire 2) right on top, you will get 3 stacks of might too.

That reminds me of one last point: ele is really only effective when you use your combo fields well. You need to learn what is a blast finisher, and what blasting each field does, so that you can get more boons to make up for your inherent lack of stats. Your most common are:
Fire fields: blast – 3 stacks of might aoe
Water: blast – aoe burst heal
Eles have a good deal of blast finishers and a lot of fields, especially fire. Most eles at least might-stack in some capacity, and staff eles blast their water fields quite a bit too.

I would encourage you to keep up with eles, and send me a message in-game if you need some help. Ele has a very high skill-floor for new players, but also a high skill-ceiling (beyond what I mentioned here) and will keep you entertained for a very long time!

MarzAttakz.9608:

The difference is you can faceroll with close to zero class experience as a guardian or thief, it works differently for an elementalist, but you should know that already.

I disagree. You can faceroll ele about as easily as war, and both are only slightly more difficult than mes, guard, and thief. This is talking PvE, of course.

Ele: Fire Atune > Dragon’s Tooth > Ring of Fire > Phoenix > Earth Atune + Arcane Wave > Earthquake > Summon LH + Water Atune > LH AA > repeat

So basically: Might stack w/ S/D, LH AA in Water atune (which is also might stacking, assuming fire field via embers, guard, war, a 2nd ele, etc), repeat. You’re just hitting “1” the majority of the time. How is that any harder than war/mes/guard/thief? … it isn’t.

War: 100blades, whirlwind, swap to axe/mace, vuln stack w/ axe 2 & mace 4, axe AA, swap to GS, repeat. Summon banners in fire field for might. Keep FGJ and OMM on CD. Use Warbanner to res downed players. I’d argue this is more interesting than ele, since you only do 1 AA chain w/ axe, then you wep swap.

Mes: Stack phantasms/clones and Sword AA. If your phantasms die, restack them. That’s about it as far as “rotations” go. Everything else is conditional. Try not to use up your mantras to keep your damage modifiers up. Use feedback at certain points. Pull certain bosses/adds with Focus 4. Use Sword 2 if you need an evade. Use kitten certain bosses. Use Power Break if your team needs Stab and Power Cleanse if they need a cleanse. Use Sig of Insp if they need Might. Most of the time, you end up hitting “1” a lot. It’s slightly easier than ele and war, but slightly harder than guard and thief.

Guard: Sword AA… and that’s the only real “rotation.” Everything else is either conditional or something you keep on perma-CD. Sword 2 for blind/vuln, Sword 3 when you need a block, Focus 4 for blind/vuln, Focus 5 for blocks. VoJ each time you kill an add for burning/blinds/vuln, VoR when your team needs a cleanse, VoC when they need Aegis. WoR when your team needs a reflect, Retreat when they need aegis/swiftness, HG when they need Stab, PF when they need a cleanse. Easier than ele and war, I agree. It mostly consists of hitting “1” a lot.

You see what I mean about PvE? Ele is no harder than any other class, so there is simply no point in wasting time between lvl’s 1 and 80. Just level your toon up, figure out the meta, do a few dungeons, and you’re golden. This idea that “ele has a steeper learning curve than any other class” is just a myth. It doesn’t. All classes are approximately equally easy in PvE.

Yes I agree about PVE which is why I don’t bother. However here’s what the OP said…

I mainly want to do sPvP and WvW when done.

Hence your advice, while great for power levelling, is bad.

I’m currently leveling my third Ele (I guess that makes me a bit of a nut). To really be successful with an Ele you need to have very good situational awareness – more so than most other professions at least.

Every 5 or so levels buy Blue quality weapons/armor. Most Blue quality weapons/armor sells on the Trading Post for 1c more than vendor value so you can effectively gear up your Ele for less than 10c per set. Focus on the defensive stats at first (Vitality, Toughness, Healing Power) and then switch to offensive stats once surviving doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore.

Learn all of your weapons. Experiment with which ones help in which situations. Staff might look desirable for its 1200 range, but in can be difficult to master. The cast times are pretty long and the AoEs don’t last very long so it becomes a game of anticipating/controlling your opponet (much easier to do in PvE than PvP/WvW). Dagger/Dagger is great for in-combat mobility but it very much puts you in harms way (melee HURTS!!) so it may be best to wait until you have better survivability before really giving it a spin.\

Last tip (this one applies to all professions): Dodge! A well-timed dodge is usually the difference between life and repair costs especially because Eles tend to be pretty squishy out of the box.

The ele is possibly the hardest profession to play. If you want to make it easier, spec into conjurer (Master Fire Trait, soon to be Adept) and run lightning hammer. The auto attack chain is very strong and the 3rd attack is a blast finisher and inflicts AoE blind.

I recommend looking up videos of solid elementalist play, and learning common combo chains people run. Most importantly, while playing the elementalist keep an adaptive mindset, don’t try and force playing a certain way or doing certain

You have to first remove the notion of the class being static. I didn’t like the ele with staff but refused to abandon the class I played in GW1. So I adapted to the changes and realized that I have to be more engaged/aggressive with the game. This made GW2 more fun and the build options far more interesting.

I equipped d/d and s/d and found it much easier to level. Learn how to dodge and figure out ways to get in the fight to lay out AoE and quickly move out. Being squishy doesn’t matter if you’re good at knowing how and when to gtfo. I mean it’s not really that difficult if you put some time into learning your skills and trying them out. You’ll just have to figure out what works and what doesn’t work for certain situations.

If you’re dying often, learn why and change it instead of continuing to do the same thing with the same skill sets knowing it doesn’t work. Personally, I think the changes to this class demands more from the player compared to the way this class is traditionally played.

Anierna.6918:

MarzAttakz.9608:

The difference is you can faceroll with close to zero class experience as a guardian or thief, it works differently for an elementalist, but you should know that already.

I disagree. You can faceroll ele about as easily as war, and both are only slightly more difficult than mes, guard, and thief. This is talking PvE, of course.

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snip —-

You see what I mean about PvE? Ele is no harder than any other class, so there is simply no point in wasting time between lvl’s 1 and 80. Just level your toon up, figure out the meta, do a few dungeons, and you’re golden. This idea that “ele has a steeper learning curve than any other class” is just a myth. It doesn’t. All classes are approximately equally easy in PvE.

You’d still be wrong. Aside from the rotation being more complicated than what other classes do (including Warrior — Ele’s have 4 skill sets while others only have 2, have longer cooldowns for attunement swap compared to weapon swap and faster cooldown to switch again), the biggest difference is that Ele’s skills are generally harder to land with due to long casting times, auto attacks that typically only hit 1 opponent or have a small splash radius (lighting whip being the big exception, although chain lightning does hit several targets and fireball can splash dmg despite the small radius) and which have slow projectile speed, and the way the different skills you need to combo together tend to be on separate attunements, AND coupled with Ele’s lack of passive defenses and having the weakest armor and smallest hit point pool, make playing an Ele substantially harder than any other class, even on PVE, but especially in PVP o WvW.

Mochann.5298:

Anierna.6918:

I disagree. You can faceroll ele about as easily as war, and both are only slightly more difficult than mes, guard, and thief. This is talking PvE, of course.

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snip —-

You see what I mean about PvE? Ele is no harder than any other class, so there is simply no point in wasting time between lvl’s 1 and 80. Just level your toon up, figure out the meta, do a few dungeons, and you’re golden. This idea that “ele has a steeper learning curve than any other class” is just a myth. It doesn’t. All classes are approximately equally easy in PvE.

You’d still be wrong. Aside from the rotation being more complicated than what other classes do (including Warrior — Ele’s have 4 skill sets while others only have 2, have longer cooldowns for attunement swap compared to weapon swap and faster cooldown to switch again), the biggest difference is that Ele’s skills are generally harder to land with due to long casting times, auto attacks that typically only hit 1 opponent or have a small splash radius (lighting whip being the big exception, although chain lightning does hit several targets and fireball can splash dmg despite the small radius) and which have slow projectile speed, and the way the different skills you need to combo together tend to be on separate attunements, AND coupled with Ele’s lack of passive defenses and having the weakest armor and smallest hit point pool, make playing an Ele substantially harder than any other class, even on PVE, but especially in PVP o WvW.

None of that stuff you said about long cast times, single-target auto-attacks, small splash radii, slow projectile speed, etc have any bearing on Ele vs. other classes in PvE. Why? Because none of that is involved in the Ele meta rotation, which I posted for S/D earlier.

Re-read the part you “snipped.” I’ll copy it here.

Anierna.6918:

Ele: Fire Atune > Dragon’s Tooth > Ring of Fire > Phoenix > Earth Atune + Arcane Wave > Earthquake > Summon LH + Water Atune > LH AA > repeat

So basically: Might stack w/ S/D, LH AA in Water atune (which is also might stacking, assuming fire field via embers, guard, war, a 2nd ele, etc), repeat. You’re just hitting “1” the majority of the time. How is that any harder than war/mes/guard/thief? … it isn’t.

War: 100blades, whirlwind, swap to axe/mace, vuln stack w/ axe 2 & mace 4, axe AA, swap to GS, repeat. Summon banners in fire field for might. Keep FGJ and OMM on CD. Use Warbanner to res downed players. I’d argue this is more interesting than ele, since you only do 1 AA chain w/ axe, then you wep swap. You are mashing “1” less often as warrior than you are as ele, and you’re doing it in between other skills, instead of 15-25 secs of continuous auto’ing that Ele’s do w/ LH

S/F is also acceptable, and post-update due to the decrease of base atune recharge from 16 secs to 13 secs, it will probably become the new meta. I posted the rotation for that in a different thread, and I’ll copy it below:

Anierna.6918:

Might stacking combo for S/F is:

Dragon’s Tooth, Flamewall, Phoenix + Arcane Wave + Earth Atune, Magnetic Wave + Water Atune, Comet, Summon LH, LH AA.

You’ll be able to get off 1 blast finisher from a complete AA chain before Flamewall expires, assuming you traited into Persisting Flames. That’s 18 might in 10 secs. It’s even better than S/D’s 15 might in 10 secs. And it’ll only happen if you are right on top of the boss and your flamewall is directly underneath both you AND the boss.

Tbh we can all sum it up to personal skill levels having played so many games in my life all these skills on elements have some certain degrees of similarity compared to other characters in other games. It is all muscle memory or whether your a genius or not. some people just learn this game faster than other people. some people need to read the hints on skills more times, some people dont. i learned it the hard way, im by no way a genius. so to me is all muscle memory once ur used to it is all good. i spend a whole day learning the moves and i was able to switch atunements easily without looking to the left bottom corner.

The moment you grab a staff. I tried three elementalists and always deleted them pretty fast. Like, pre level 10.

The skills were just so slow to land that it was painful to watch. I followed the popular idea of going dagger/dagger) utterly dislike having to be in near melee range) and the Scepter/Dagger setup (slooooow animations taking foreeeever).

At my fourth elementalist I grabbed a staff and never looked back. 100% fire. Start with staff 2, then staff 3, auto attack, most things are dead by the time they reach you. Or start with staff 3, auto attack once, put lava font under your feet, keep auto attacking. Use Arcane Blast when mobs are in range for more damage and 3 stacks of Might.

It was easy. The attunement dance is a bore and forces a piano display of virtuosity to achieve what staff in fire does: frig ton of damage.

Well, to be honest, I also ran into some trouble while levelling my Ele more than a year ago (before the personal storyline was made easy).
But there was one thing that made it much easier for me. I realized that Elementalist is totally different class than others, understood how the class works and suddenly, killing mobs was easy, doing personal story without much trouble too.
Try to do some research on the class, it’s totally worth it and you’ll need that anyway if you want to play it effectively (although it’s much easier to achieve that with other classes).
Still, mesmer is much bigger pain to level than Ele

Pfft, so many people say that. I don’t understand it. Tanks on demand that cripple when killed. Between the HP boost and the signet that grants more HP clones and phantasms are beasts.

Kanto.1659:

Pfft, so many people say that. I don’t understand it. Tanks on demand that cripple when killed. Between the HP boost and the signet that grants more HP clones and phantasms are beasts.

I’m not talking about the abilities, but about the kill/time ratio. I was wayyy faster with Ele than with Mes, And I’m not talking about my other alts. But levelling in this game is still very fast compared to other MMOs, so nothing to complain about here, actually.

Once I figured out the essence of each attunement, it became much easier. Yes, there is an attunement dance. But when you realize that:

fire = aoe damage, burn
air = single target damage, blind, stun
earth = condition damage, defense
water = healing, cleansing, chill

then you know which attunement to swap to and when. You’re generally in air or fire to attack, swap to earth or water as needed, then back to attacks.

Seras.5702:

Once I figured out the essence of each attunement, it became much easier. Yes, there is an attunement dance. But when you realize that:

fire = aoe damage, burn
air = single target damage, blind, stun
earth = condition damage, defense
water = healing, cleansing, chill

then you know which attunement to swap to and when. You’re generally in air or fire to attack, swap to earth or water as needed, then back to attacks.

Also the knowledge of fields and finishers is essential for Ele proffesion. It can halve the fight length if used properly and also that’s what other players want from you when playing grouped

STRanger.5120:

Also the knowledge of fields and finishers is essential for Ele proffesion. It can halve the fight length if used properly and also that’s what other players want from you when playing grouped

True enough. I’ve been doing dungeons while leveling using LH, but I’ve been trying to maintain group might stacking rotations between my LHs. Working on that while staying alive is the hardest part for me right now.

Seras.5702:

STRanger.5120:

Also the knowledge of fields and finishers is essential for Ele proffesion. It can halve the fight length if used properly and also that’s what other players want from you when playing grouped

True enough. I’ve been doing dungeons while leveling using LH, but I’ve been trying to maintain group might stacking rotations between my LHs. Working on that while staying alive is the hardest part for me right now.

Exactly, LH is really good at doing damage, but the builds around that really denies the class as a whole (you’re basically a squishy warrior with the LH in hand). But if you start to use your own fields to stack might on the whole group, you can maintain 20 stacks on all melee easily (i don’t know how much % dmg increase it is, but it’s quite huge), and that is the damage which can be counted as yours, and it goes far higher than the damage you do with your LH build, so think about this

The problem is that Anet doesn’t build this class for damage dealing and preserving the class mechanics at the same time (all pure dmg builds depends on one thing – one utility [LH], one trait [Fresh Air] or one attunement [Staff Fire]), which makes me quite sad, I would like to do my damage because I use the class mechanic fully, not because I’m not using it, if you know what I mean

I do. I love how variable & dynamic Ele can be in combat, but the flaw I’ve discovered is that there are some incredibly useful traits (which is good) whose necessity almost dictate builds (which is bad). Namely, our water & arcana trait lines being so good at compensating for our inherent squishiness forcing us to trait heavily into those lines, and pigeon-holing our build variety.

I think that if Anet buffed our base health we wouldn’t have to be so dependent on those traits and could therefor build more freely. Ok…rant over.

Seras.5702:

I do. I love how variable & dynamic Ele can be in combat, but the flaw I’ve discovered is that there are some incredibly useful traits (which is good) whose necessity almost dictate builds (which is bad). Namely, our water & arcana trait lines being so good at compensating for our inherent squishiness forcing us to trait heavily into those lines, and pigeon-holing our build variety.

I think that if Anet buffed our base health we wouldn’t have to be so dependent on those traits and could therefor build more freely. Ok…rant over.

Agreed, but I don’t think that the base HP is the main problem.
The problem is that everything Ele has is cut to half in the effectivity manner (we have twice as much weapon skills, therefore we deserve to be halved in everything else – good reason, huh?), bigger CDs, traits that affect only a quarter of our abilities (attunement specific ones for example) etc. etc. The only exception are arcana traits and partially water ones, which is leading to the pigeonhole you mentioned, because we have only 70 trait points like everybody else, so logically, we want as much bang for our buck as possible.