Guild Wars 2

I’m about a couple of months into GW2, and I generally PvE in MMO’s. I’ve been leveling a Necro, a Warrior, a Ranger, a Guardian and… an Elementalist.

So far, the Elementalist is the weakest of the bunch. I haven’t seen the lack of survivability in any MMO class like this one since the must-have-a-group builds in EQ. I’ve read the various guides that people have kindly written, but they are frequently written to level 80 specs and gear, or full groups, and often recommend abilities that have been since nerfed.

I’ve tried the combo fields and attunement switching and conjuring weapons. I still die a lot versus mobs that every other class can handle. I get to play with friends 1-2 times a week, and go solo mostly. If I fight more than two mobs, it’s likely I’ll be close to death or die. My other characters can handle a veteran and two regular mobs solidly, like some events and skill challenges require. I tried one event last night where all the attunement switching and comboing did jack against the mobs, dragging the event on, while some melee player wandered in and cleared the whole event solo. Story missions are kicking my butt.

I don’t have all the button pushing down cold by any means, but I’m trying. Still, while I’m dancing around and trying to get my buffs up, my health plummets and I’m often Fighting to Survive. Even when I do it right, I don’t see much of a difference between the more complex rotations and just conjuring a weapon and using 1-2 attunements. The amount of effort put into the recommended boon building does not have the payoff when all the Traits that everyone raves about are greater than 10 pts in.

Is this a class meant to be suffered through until 60+? If so, that’s a bad design. I most recently played Rift for a couple of years, and right out of the box, the Mages there could be ultra-survivable or glass cannons, or mix and match various desired abilities.

I really like this game, and I’d like to enjoy a traditional magician class here. Necro is fine, Mesmer looks interesting, but Elementalist, so far, is a disappointment.

You’re not the first to feel this bro. I just ended up crafting my 3rd ele to 80 due to the nightmares the last two gave me while leveling before 30.

If you need help you’ll have to describe some more about your situation.
What level are you?
What weapons are you using?
Is your gear up to date for your level?
What is your current build?
Are you dodging (with the dodge button)? Are you moving?

I do promise Ele’s get more survivable when they hit 80. By that time a lot of their traits really start to synergize.

Something I did to get to 80 was:

• Put 20 points into Fire for Fire VIII – Conjurer (conjured weaps have 10 more charges)
• Put 10 points into Aranca for Aracana V – Elemental Attunement.
• Put Lightning hammer on your bars.
• Auto attack with #1. The 3rd hit of the auto-attack is an AoE blind.
• While attacking keep switching attunements constanstly for Might/Regen/Protection/Swiftness/Fury.
• 15 points in water also gives you more Regen (Soothing Mist) and a heal without using your heal (Healing Ripple)

With 50 charges you’ll be able to keep Lightning Hammer out indefinitely (assuming someone doesn’t take your spare). You’ll get hit once at the start of combat, but you’ll be able to be lazy and stand still and power through multiple mobs and veterans.

Just don’t attack Dredge; they are immune to blinds.

Get to level 40 and switch to the Lightning Hammer build.
That quite literally turned everything around.
Before then learn how to use D/D. Lightning Whip is a really solid Auto-Attack.

Also not fun, playing an elementalist for anything other than ZvZ in WvW.

Thanks for the reply. I’m 23, started with Elemental Attunement – 10 pts in Arcane, switched to 10 in Water. Level 20 masterwork gear, mostly custom made for Vitality, all with minor runes. I dodge when I can, and use the evasive powers too. Usually I do S/D or S/F, but I’m trying D/D recently. In groups, I usually use staff.

Father Grimm.8467:

Thanks for the reply. I’m 23, started with Elemental Attunement – 10 pts in Arcane, switched to 10 in Water. Level 20 masterwork gear, mostly custom made for Vitality, all with minor runes. I dodge when I can, and use the evasive powers too. Usually I do S/D or S/F, but I’m trying D/D recently. In groups, I usually use staff.

I leveled in a very weird way, but didnt find it all that hard… granted, Im a bit hiperactive and tend to go running like crazy. So, trait wise I used 10/10/10/10/10, cause I didnt want to spend gold on books(I was really bad getting gold :P). What I mean with this is that traits can adapt to your playstyle, but Ele needs a bit more mobility. I mainly used staff though I am loving s/d now after hitting 80.

I would suggest that your next equipment is toughness instead of vitality though(please someone correct me if I’m wrong). I found that the health I got from Vitality didnt keep me alive as much versus when I went toughness. Ele already has the lowest health, so vitality doesnt tend to give them back as much as they do to someone else… Their armor on the contrary is the same as any other light armor users, which means toughness let you get a few more hits than you would normally, being a better boost for survival while leveling.

I never used conjured weapons, but I always kept my elementals(both util and elite) handy as well as either Arcane Shield or Mist Form(and sometimes both). they are mostly “panic butons”, but when combined with Auras at the right time on top of your toughness it should keep you alive.

When I started to play Ele I used staff until around level 40; it was manageable, I could kill 2, maybe 3 enemies a few levels above me but one mistake and I was close to death, 2 mistakes and it was game over.
Then I switched to D+D and just rushed through the game, I pulled the next enemy(s) when the last was about to die; Dagger Water 2 heals yourself, too.

Go primary for Power and secondary for Condition Damage, you want to kill your enemies fast so you gain exp and level up fast.

Ele just isn’t all that great for PvE. Bunkering is still just about the strongest thing an ele can do, but that is largely a waste of time in pve. Bunkering revolves around kittening around and winning an attrition battle. Attrition makes no sense in pve when your enemies will make no attempt to avoid your hits and attack in predictable patterns. You can go for more damage, but other professions don’t have to give up as much damage for the sake of good pve utility and support as an ele does.

Also, some of the ele’s advantages over other professions don’t mean much in pve. A bunker ele has better condi removal, boons, mobility and burst healing than a guardian. Unfortunately, none of that is super useful in pve, and guardians have more projectile defense, which is way more useful. A glass ele can blast fire fields for might and fury, but a warrior can just use banners without taking a specific trait or making a conscious effort to combo.

I will almost never use my ele for non-fractal dungeons. It’s just a lot of button pressing for less benefit. I still use an ele for open world stuff because a bunker ele can solo anything within reason, but I wouldn’t recommend an ele for pve unless you just naturally enjoy it. Ele can work just fine for pve, but there isn’t any objective reason to try and make it work if you like other professions better.

Leveling ele gets easy once you hit 40 and can effectively use Lightning Hammers.
Hell, tanking multiple vets becomes braindead easy at that point.

Tei.1704:

Ele just isn’t all that great for PvE. Bunkering is still just about the strongest thing an ele can do, but that is largely a waste of time in pve. Bunkering revolves around kittening around and winning an attrition battle.

I tried this, but there is a huge flaw with it. That would be the fact that mobs respawn so f***ing fast. I literally have killed a mob looted it and had another spawn right in front of me, on multiple occasions.

Politsu.5763:

Tei.1704:

Ele just isn’t all that great for PvE. Bunkering is still just about the strongest thing an ele can do, but that is largely a waste of time in pve. Bunkering revolves around kittening around and winning an attrition battle.

I tried this, but there is a huge flaw with it. That would be the fact that mobs respawn so f***ing fast. I literally have killed a mob looted it and had another spawn right in front of me, on multiple occasions.

That’s what happens when you spec to hit like a wet noodle.

It’s not you. Ele is just really UP at PVE and horrible to level. Just another item in a long list of game elements that have been poorly and inflexibly designed.

Pump fire and take Lava Tomb! The dev’s gave the eles the best downed trait of all the professions so you might as well you it. /cynicism

I had similar trouble lvling my Ele, most I could take on was 2…3 or more and I had to run. I am now lvling a mesmer, I took on four mobs last night and had no trouble, something I couldnt do with my Ele.

This thread genuinely confuses me.

Stack Power, throw in some Precision & Toughness where needed. Run D/D or S/D and profit. I recently brought an Ele up to 80 and had zero issues killing 2-3 equal level mobs and/or a vet + adds.

You can’t expect to run Staff and kill things fast, just like a Warrior can’t go Mace + Shield and expect the same.

I levelled to 60 in level 20 zones, that was a fun experience, best thing, I could take on 10-15 mobs at a time with d/d. Got to 60, went to 60 content died instantly. Turns out level 20 gear is not good for level 60 zones. Brought greens of the TB for like 10 silver and presto, breezed through the level 60 content reaching 80 not very long later (turns out level appropriate stuff levels you quickly).

Well for 1. Dont use staff until lv 40ish. Use s/d,/s/f, or d/f. You have a higher survival rate and better sustained DoT.

Hmm, that’s weird. My personal experience is that ele is more fun than any other class once I hit around level 30-50. In level 41 I could do a raptor group of 12, each level 45-46. I started in Sparkfly Fen in level 40, although the the area starts at level 45. I even did the big level 45 drake mother in level 40 without much help. For me it feels like I’m playing my guardian once more, I enjoy it so much! I’m d/d btw.

Dont know about this, I have an 80 ranger, 80 warrior, 36 thief, 12 mesmer and 51 elementalist and I must say that with the build I have and d/d (occasionaly scepter or staff), elementalist lvling has been by far the best and the most fun experience in this game.
I am runing towards 25 air, 20 arcana, 20 water build that resolves around auras, burst and boons and its a blast, I have imba sustain through water 0-100% hp in 2-4 sec, constant 4 boons up, can stack might to 15 stacks solo, have almost 100% uptime on swiftness and the mobility + survivability I have with using arcane blast, arcane bolt and movespeed signet as my utilities (meaning full aggro) is just so much fun to play with. Oh and the healing signet is great if you spam all your skills.

The only thing you need is speed, switching through attunements and moving around.

(P.S. I can AoE + kite most groups regardless of the quantity of enemies + solo any champion I have encountered so far.)

Let me toss out an example of a recent play session that was very frustrating: Diessa Plateau, in the area with ghost trebuchets, cannons, and Ascalonians that pop and repop like mad. I tried using D/D in there and was consistently assailed by enemies at range, melee, and AEs from the local machines.

Even when I’d clear a melee mob or two, my health was constantly being burst down by mages, archers, or the local artillery. D/D was no good against those; a summoned frost bow helped, but I could never dps down anything fast enough. LOS and swiftness did best, but running around usually got me wandering into more adds or AEs, and only rare opportunities to break off aggro and heal up.

I’ve yet to try the place with a ranged build (S/D or S/F are my usual soloing weapons) , but I’m doubtful it would go much better. The damage is still too low to eliminate all the threats in time. I tried my Ranger and Necromancer there: no problems. Those classes could switch from melee to ranged distance mobs easily, and took out everything relatively quickly , without complex rotations to get buffs up that were required to be at all useful.

I don’t doubt that I could switch things out to do better as an Elementalist there, but the other two classes were so much stronger that I could pay attention to the environment and the constant addition of new threats. The Elementalist was barely hanging on, and got swarmed by adds many times, constantly hammering at his health. The water heals and buffs from attunement switching were hardly noticeable. I ran a lot, but eventually was blasted down – the briefly-lived defenses were never enough. Sorry, but I find these stories about easy leveling pre-40 hard to believe.

I get most of my joy from MMOs from the leveling process, enjoying the diverse content that devs put hundreds of work years into creating, not repeating the same stuff again and again at max level. So far, the leveling game for Elementalist is nothing but frustrating so far.

TL;DR – The complex rotations should be icing on the cake, not required for basic survival. Buff survivability.

I thought leveling an ele was a blast, but I guess it depends on what you consider fun. If you just want an easy experience dropkicking your way through content it’s probably not going to be the way to go. But if you like a bit more of a challenge, ele can be a lot of fun. To me it just kept me so much more engaged. Before ele I leveled an engi and a guardian. I’ve tried ele before but never really stuck with it for various reason I won’t get into besides saying a lot of it having to do with perception, and this time I ignored a lot of the BS that held me back before.

I pretty much did most of 1-80 with the staff, switching up to D/D for a few spots. (Not a scepter fan, just don’t find it fun, but forcing myself to use it now to at least be comfortable with it) I just found staff made it all much easier just because of the wealth of control options at your disposal on top of the healing from water staff, I felt pretty durable, albeit with a much more active defense than my engi or guardian.

I mostly ran with Ether renewal, arcane blast and wave, and then signet of air, which I would occasionally switch out for armor of earth or arcane shield if I needed more defense than mobility, and then tornado as my elite. And I leveled into a 30/0/0/20/20 which I’m still using for the time being, and doing okay with.

Reading the forums I was apparently ‘not doing it right,’ but that was news to me. I enjoyed it and didn’t get frustrated and that all that I really care about. The only real negative I can think of from leveling was not trying out knight’s gear sooner.

Father Grimm.8467:

Let me toss out an example of a recent play session that was very frustrating: Diessa Plateau, in the area with ghost trebuchets, cannons, and Ascalonians that pop and repop like mad. I tried using D/D in there and was consistently assailed by enemies at range, melee, and AEs from the local machines.

Even when I’d clear a melee mob or two, my health was constantly being burst down by mages, archers, or the local artillery.

Without trying to derail your thread at all, that particular area isn’t hard for you because you’re an Elementalist; that spot (The Grenditch Ruins, specifically) just stinks for aggro and sheer annoyance factor. Even when I bring my 80s there (an Engineer, Warrior, and Mesmer) for the jumping puzzle, it’s a headache.

I have fun levelling mine on the side, but it is definitely the weakest character I’ve levelled in the early levels.

A tip I find generally useful when levelling; if you find yourself in an area with very annoying spawns, have a summon like elementals or whatever you can get to draw some fire in one of your utility slots. Mobs almost always turn to go after them, and particularly the earth ele can take a bit of a beating.