Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone!

So after getting my guardian to level 80, which albeit was not exactly a challenge, I am having extraordinary difficulty with my ele…I find the differences with guardian quite high..

I feel like each hit takes off a fifth of my HP, and my attacks are just plain weak..even with sigils of bloodlust..

any suggestions for early game leveling? specifically when the stronger traits aren’t available yet (lvl 20-40)..I am currently using D/D but even then I feel like my damage isn’t enough..

Should I invest in toughness and vitality for my armor? any suggestions appreciated..thanks

It’s very tough. Ele has to be the hardest character I’ve ever had to level, for sure. The truth is Eles have low base damage and low stats, which is a pretty harsh combination. They have very powerful traits, however, that allow them to achieve high damage or high survivability, but you more or less have to pick one or the other.

My advice would be to stick to daggers, put points in Arcana, and really try to learn to cycle through those attunements. It’s tough. But I’d definitely suggest making sure to learn to use your big hitters to do better damage.

Buy gear every 5-10 levels (weapons and armour, rings and amulets if you want)

To be honest with you, I would shelf the elementalist for the foreseeable future. They are one of the hardest classes to level up (if not the hardest), and after you hit level 80 you will still have a sub-standard class for PvE as well as WvW (staff is ok for zergs I suppose, but outside of that dont expect to do much).
If you do intend to continue to playing an elementalist (it is still my favorite class despite not being that good), My recommendation would be to get 10 points in Arcana as soon as you can. See what you can do with he Lightning Hammer spam method (I realize this completely defeats the purpose of playing elementalist though :S). Get good at kiting and since you are so squishy it is imperative to watch the enemies for their skill “wind ups” so that you can dodge the greater portion of their attacks. Glyph of storms “sandstorm” is good for blind-tanking enemies as well (they cant do damage if they can’t hit you). There are some good leveling guides around and I would suggest skimming over a few to see what they have to say. Good luck, and welcome to the elementalist class

It might help to run with the two glyphs for Elementals (specifically Earth) and use one or the other depending on which isn’t up. Their CDs/durations last long enough to allow you to have at least one out most of the time.

At lower levels, attunement swapping is not that great with low Arcana. You’re probably better off spending your trait point directly into Fire/Air for direct stat damage increases, spending most of your time in those attunements while saving Water/Earth for emergency situations or summoning Elementals. Do not necessarily get used to this play style though as it is different at 80.

Arcane Wave/Blast are great for increasing damage.

Also, upgrade gear often (at the very least every ten levels going for at least masterwork when those become available).

hmm thanks for the tips everyone..it seems to me that this is the “challenge” class now. I remember before when I started playing my guardian last year that the ele was considered “overpowered”, it must have gotten seriously nerfed then because the combination of low armor and low damage is just brutal. The adaptability of the class is effectively gone as a result, which is sad..

I wouldn’t say the ele was over powered. It was definitely powerful.

A lot of people would see D/D bunkers with their cantrips and laughable wet noodles then not even recognize when a D/D was running Zerkers and their sponge cake bodies but powerful hits.

So the 2 got merged into 1 and it became:
Eles can heal tank damage and roam at the same time NERFF!!!

Mean while Eles could heal and tank or damage and roam, 2 separate builds.

To wrap up the story, the devs followed everyone’s conjecture now we have this sorry state. I’m still here, still playing my ele, though in hot joins now and soloq sometimes.

Leveling an ele right now and got him to 40 tonight. My thoughts

- Went full dagger/dagger with trait points going into arcana and earth

- If I have any choice in gear, I put on vitality and toughness, haven’t bought anything yet from merchants, TP, or crafted anything

- My main rotation is pretty silly and suicidal with fire 3 into the fray, fire 4, earth 4, arcane blast, then earth 5. Prior to lightening hammer I would then shift into lightening to finish it off. After lightening hammer I would cast it and go to town blinding everything in sight till its dead.

- Yes I end up dead a decent amount, but I usually survive most of the fights that are +1 to me even with 4-5 minions. Boss fights are nasty if they kill me during earth 5, but if I survive that, I am semi kiting and dodging around till he goes down. If there’s anyone else to draw off the boss aggro, being right behind a boss is a great spot plus you do some nice buffs to the melee allies with the fire circle deal

- I hate underwater combat as an ele coming from a grenade engi who was ridiculously good pve in the water

So far it’s working well, if my survivability becomes more of an issue i’ll probably remove the speed signet and add armor of earth on.

In terms of difficulty, so far I have an 80 thief, mesmer, and engi. I found my dagger thief the hardest to level due to lack of survivability, particularly in dungeons (I simply can’t do the whole pistol/shortbow thing as a main weapon), mesmer was hard up to 40 then easy, and engi was a royal pain in the butt till 60 (grenadier) due to lack of DPS or anything really. Right now I find ele medium difficulty in leveling.

I also use a razer naga mouse which is a lifesaver for speed (and a godsend for multi kit engi’s). F1 through F4 are rebound to shift 1 through 4 so i hold shift on my left hand while WASD’ing and can click through attunements and skills through the right thumb on the mouse. Rotation is as easy as 3, 4 shift 4, 4, 8, 5, shift 3.

Nothing here is mindshattering, most of it is on the forum here, but it’s what works for me so far.

@Vyx, the buying gear of the TP is for less skilful players, the ones that get killed a lot.

Another fun thing you can do if you die a lot (esp in melee) is to put points into fire and get lava tomb. When you go down, the thing your fighting does too.

As to thief levelling, I told my friend it would be hard, and he was like “its so easy”. Now he’s level 40 and well, its hard.

I also have shift 1-4 bound to attunement swap, but the amount of times I link skills out of bad habits is annoying.

TGSlasher.1458:

@Vyx, they buying gear of the TP is for less skilful players, the ones that get killed a lot.

You don’t say…

spalt.6938:

TGSlasher.1458:

@Vyx, they buying gear of the TP is for less skilful players, the ones that get killed a lot.

You don’t say…

I do say

@TG re Lava Tomb

I’ve been a bit torn on points in fire (since I like to conjure both fiery greatsword and lightening hammer), but Arcana’s reduction on attunement cooldown is just too awesome for me to pass up for now. But in its place is earth 5 w/ dagger, as long as I can get that out the bleeds do most of my rezzing (and up to level 50 now, I have added armor of storms onto my bar as well as the earth trait for auto armor of storms at 50% health).

Did an AC SM run last night with a terrible pug group and I was the last one alive at Raylene and Vassar. He has only a sliver of health left as did I so I did the sexy suicidal combo and went down 2 seconds later due to a DoT (had already burnt everything else healingwise), mist formed around a corner and as he was turning the corner to finish me off he died due to bleeds

Yea, getting bleeds or burns off before you go down is very useful. However, getting a 3 second skill off before you go down can be hard at times. Lightning Flash helps a lot (you can use it during your churning earth, earth 5, to teleport away or into foes.).

Lightning flash is defiantly worth a slot on the bar, or at least to be unlocked.

I like to use the frost bow and melt the enemies with frost bow 4, then 3 to chill, drop into Dragons Tooth – Phoenix combo (sceptre main hand).