Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve been giving ele a try, and I find myself struggling in most boss encounters no matter what build i choose, especially stacking encounters.

I might be missing something but all these ‘meta’ builds are very powerful BUT if the fight lasts longer then your first rotation and boss/champ/whatever decides to lock onto you, you’re dead. I don’t get it?? Unless I’m summoning elite earth elemental I find myself either dead or running away/ healing for 90% of the fight.

So my fights go as follow: I stack might/fury right away> boss locks onto me >I summon elite earth ele> go through my rotations again > elite dies >boss locks onto me again > heal > run > defensive skills > dead/running (either way no dps).

I’ve tried S/D LH (great for trash, but blinds don’t really help against champs)
I’ve tried staff and i survive the best with this, but if we’re stacking it’s lacking the defense to just stand there and take it with the crew.
I like D/F the most cause lightning whip is cool, but i can’t seem to make this reliable.

I’m using ether renewal because all these builds lack condi removal and I think you’re all crazy for taking the other heal just cause it gives you an additional blast finisher.
I do have celestial trinkets which is giving me toughness that could be the issue?
I do put 2 in arcane for vigor, and I’m good at dodging, but if it’s a boss that attacks often then it doesn’t matter.

Any help would be apprecated, not sure what I’m missing.

Is there a certain encounter you’re having trouble with?

PVE is really about learning the mechanics of each fight.

Outside of that, Try utilizeing Swirling Winds when it’s projectile, Obsidian flesh is nice. Magnetic Wave will cleanse conditions. Deep Freeze with Icebow5 is a nice way to start a fight and free you up to lay that Icebow4 without concern. Aside from that it’s dodging + Positioning, and a little help from your team never hurts.

Some encounters are really tough, but everything is doable, so I’d look more towards the specific encounters to ask advice on how to approach them because they’ll all be a little bit different.

^what he said

Just know that LW has ridiculous range, so abuse this. You will still be in range for team buffs and you should only do this when you are getting rekt or when you have one of the many PUG pvt AH Guardians that only use Aegis(or any boon actually) when they need a heal.

AND never forget about Rocky, the trusty sturdy earth ele. Get aggro? Pop rocky and stand on the other side of the boss.

tbh, biggest problem is that pug’s still stack bosses that should not even be stacked anymore. They are still stuck in FGS meta w/o FGS. I’d understand in groups with 4 warriors for WW dmg, but more then 1 warrior in a group makes me cry.

LW range below

Wanna Duo in pug with me? I can give you some pointers.

First off thanks for the advice, the range on lightning whip was very helpful.

Second, it was in fact the celestial stats that were doing me in. Bosses and mobs were fixated on me cause I was running with too much toughness. I thought the celestial stats would help me adjust to life in the light armor and plus I’m lazy and didn’t want a different WvW set. As soon as I changed gear life got easier.
Now I’m loving D/F ferocity build.

When bosses and mobs fixate on you, ele just doesn’t have enough evasion/defense to escape when stone golem is on CD doesn’t matter how well you know the fight.

Just out of curiosity, to all you D/F folk out there: When you arrive at a fight that requires ranged kiting, do you switch weapons before the fight, or do you just throw ice bow into your skill bar instead?

Well Ice Bow rarely leaves my bar already And In general it’s rare that kiting is needed but if it is I’d probably stick to D/F as staff’s big things are field based, so a mobile enemy isn’t getting full damage anyways, might as well utilize my more flexible/more utility set with D/F.

Of course there are Range fights, that aren’t kiting fights, and then staff wins out. For example phase 1 of Lupi you can range, staff is quite nice there as you can basically free cast max damage on him for like 1 rotation then he’s going to phase anyways and then begins the fun stuff.