Guild Wars 2

Used to playing other classes, but I really like ele. However, struggling at pvp for it.
Tried staff but was abysmal at it. Do ok with s/d, but seem to be best at d/d.

Tried to make my own build – running 0/0/6/2/6. Did mediocre, but read about meta build being 0/0/2/6/6 and have tried that one. I use traits 6 for earth, 3, 10, 11 for water, and 2,8,11 for arcane. Go with celestial as recommended.

Few questions on it:
1) Do battle and doom sigils work? Can’t swap weapons in combat with ele, but does cycling attunements activate the sigil?
2) Best way to stack might? I use fire 4, then switch to water – use skill 3 – then quick switch to earth. Hit 4 then usually use 2 (nonblast skill) then try a roll to activate blast – so basically 3 blasts. Hard to get roll to work sometimes because I’m in center of fire circle and often will roll out of it.
3) How do you use fire grab effectively? Obviously I like to have them burning, but seems like most ppl know its coming once you use skill 2 on fire. Fire grab seems to miss very easily if opponent is moving and often seems to randomly miss even if I have them lined up perfectly. They dont even have to dodge it.
4) Is churning earth useful in spvp? I’ve tried using it, but usually i get pounded while rooted and channeling, interrupted, or they just dodge at end. I’ve tried combining it with utility – lightning flash, but most ppl seem to dodge it even when you port to them.
5) what are good utility skills to bring? I’ve been using arcane shield, armor of earth, and lightning flash. Found mist form was good for stomping and rezzing but that was about it. Tried air signet for increased mobility and as stun breaker and blind. It seemed decent but no one else seems to use it.
6) Overal strategies? Not sure how to use my skills effectively to burst down opponents. I usually try to link obvious ones together but after using a few, cooldowns seem to kill me.

Sorry if tl;dr, but would love to learn how to play this profession better. I;ve done fair amount of spvp with it, but feel like i’ve plateaued. Not horrible with it, but if I go against experienced or good players, I get absolutely destroyed.

Cycling attunements does trigger swap sigils yes.

Sometimes you can use Cleansing Flames for an instant burn while you’re casting Fire Grab, or wait til they’ve used their dodges.

I’m not that experienced but I hope that helps…

D/F bunker ele seems to work more often than not. Once you’re used to the weapon set you simply swap out the amulet for celestial or zerker if you want to be a hybrid/damage dealer.

1) On-Swap sigils work with attunements, which means you’ll maintain a high Poison uptime – important because that reduces the healing your enemies recieve.
2) You are doing it right
3) You can Immobilize them with Magnetic Grasp, or CC them with Updraft and Earthquake to make it easier to land – but also more obvious. You can also apply burning by dodging to them on fire attunement.
4) Yeah, you can’t really land it without lightning flash and even then most people will dodge it because they know the trick. It’s easier to land if you are just entering the teamfight (so some enemies still haven’t noticed you), start casting it far away and then lightning flash in. That usually works, but it’s really rare that an ele can land even 1 CEs. But don’t really attempt it in the middle of the fight, because you are a free kill while casting this.
5) Mist Form is more common with s/f and s/d, so Berserker Amulet, because they can’t really manage being focused for too long, they need something that negates enemy burst. On Cele D/D you are a lot more tanky, so those eles usually pick Armor Of Earth – stunbreaker, stability, and allows them to keep casting – both skills allow you to stomp enemies. As for other utilities, the ones you currently have are totally fine.
6) Your entire fire attunement is about bursting, but you can use skill 3 to evade attacks too, even when immobilized. Burning Speed’s distance can be change by camera positioning – if your camera is in “bird’s eye view” (so aimed at the ground) the distance you travel will be smaller, so you can aim it better with this trick. Air autoattack is a nice cleave and has some great skills for damage mitigation like skill 3 or even skill that applies weakness. Updraft gives Evasion, you can use it to avoid damage while immobilized just like Burning Speed, but this one also CCs your opponent. If you are on low HP, click the ground so the game cancels target (and make sure you don’t have auto-targetting on) and then just Ride the Lightning out of the fight. Water proivdes excellent healing and soft CC with chills too.

Hope this helps

Thanks for all the advice. It’s very helpful.

The guide is a bit old, but check it out: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-7-15-13/first

This was one of the best D/D eles I’d seen.