Guild Wars 2

Hi there, just rolled an elementalist yesterday and she is level 15. This will be my 5th character to 80, I already have an 80 Thief Guardian Necromancer and Warrior.

Ive done a little bit of reading, watched some videos, but could use some first hand advice:
-What weapon set would you recommend?
-What leveling spec would you recommend, per 10 points?
-What stat priority would you recommend?

Given the above:
-What would your single target rotation be?
-What would your AOE rotation be?

-Currently I have been running a scepter/dagger build.
-I threw the first 5 points into Fire
-I have been stacking power

Single Target:
Air: 4, 5, 2,3, 2, all the while autoattacking. I might switch into earth if everything is on cooldown

AOE:
Air: 4, Fire: 2,4,3,Arcane blast. If needed, I switch into Earth: 4, 5.

Any advice? I feel as if single target is extremely weak, or I am not playing it correctly. AOE is VERY strong, but I sometimes get jarbled up in my rotation. I also feel that I am going down pretty quickly as well. I know I am squishy, but leveling 4 other toons to 80, I never stacked vitality or toughness when I could stack DPS stats…Not sure why my elementalist is getting two or three shotted at times.

Thanks,

First off, the stock Elementalist is very, very squishy. He can, however, be modded with earth and water (and vitality/toughness/healing raising abilities) to become nigh invincible, paired with good finger work. I have read of some staff elementalists focusing on DPS (lots of fire) and staying away from the enemy.

But I pretty much only use Dagger/Dagger. I use the same rotation regardless of whether I’m hitting one or many targets, primarily because my cooldowns and my combos require it. From a distance, I open with ride the lightning, spam the rest of my air attacks, switch to fire.

Fire leap back in. Breath of Fire (some people just use the first tick to get the burning going, but I like to use all four). During BoF, I strafe around a bit, trying to get as many enemies in the line of fire, and then Fire Grasp (#5), deals good damage when the opponent is already burning. Ring of fire, to lay down that field, and switch to Earth.

Now I triple combo. I haven’t decided whether to use Earthquake or Magnetic Grasp first yet, but I do them, and then channel Churning Earth. This gets me two stacks of might and a fire aura to protect me while I channel… and every time I crack a new “overkill” achievement, it’s at the conclusion of the Churning Earth.

Time to recover: switch to Water. Once again, strafe around while breathing ice (bring up ice armor during), quickly spam the remaining water abilities, and because I am water “themed” and specced very much for healing, this is where I drop an ice storm and summon my elemental.

Back into air, just keep swapping around as my cooldowns run down. If I find myself quickly running low on hitpoints, I either switch to Water and kite around while regenerating, or switch to Air and GTFO.

Hi, thanks for the reply. While there is a method to your madness, as well as mine, I cannot help but think that this is nothing more than spam all of the abilities in your attunement(within logical reason…i.e. trying to get combo fields and auras), and go to the next attunement. Its really saddening me to see that the elementalist does not truly shine unless he/she goes into two or three different attunements to kill one pack of mobs.

Tarvok: Leveling up, how would I trait, per 10 points..?

Hope you enjoy this class I find it more enjoyable than my thief sometimes!

Trait wise, I personally do not go past 10 in fire, the +10% damage on attunement is good enough. The rest in the fire line are “just okay”, and there are other trait lines to spend your points on. I put 30 into earth for the nice boost in toughness and condition damage, taking “Signet Mastery”, “Earth’s Embrace”, and “Written in stone”. Because of 2 of the 3 traits, I have at least 3 signets on my toolbar. Most of the time it’s signet of restoration (heal slot), signet of fire, and signet of earth. I switch fire for air when I’m out exploring. It’s nice to pop a signet and continue to have the passive effects. As for the other 30 points, I put 15 in water for “Cleansing wave” and 15 in Arcana for “Elemental attunement”. With all of this, I’m able to heal a bit and take more punishment from mobs.

I’m a staff elementalist so I just range and use AoE. If you’re thinking about what sigil to use on your sceptre, dagger(s), or staff – I suggest taking a look at the sigils that trigger on weapon swap. Attunement swap is the same as weapon swap.

I’m not sure what else to cover since I’m not an expert, but there’s my advice

Hi,
It is very fun. Like I said previously I am button mashing in a methodical order to get combo fields off, stacking might..but it feels just chaotic..ordered chaos of button mashing. Maybe I’ll get used to it.

I like the weapon loadout I have now, scepter dagger…wondering what stats? Im thinking that since if I go through the AOE rotation even on single target mobs, they drop real quick. Considering stacking Toughness, to be able to take a few punches while getting those combos off…

Thoughts?

Maybe: Toughness > Power > Vitality…a Knights set type of stat priority, but prioritizing toughness.

I think that chaotic feel is an example of Working As Intended. Don’t think of the elementalist as a scholarly wizard. Think of him as a whirling maelstrom of elemental chaos. Also imagine the potential if you get to the point where you can CHANGE your button mashing mid-stream to react to what your opponent (most likely in PvP) does. There’s nothing quite like hitting Updraft at just the right moment.

I get the impression that, to play an elementalist to its full potential, one must have very quick reflexes.

If you get the AC dungeon armor, it gives power, toughness, and vitality. I tend to focus more on toughness than power. In my hero panel, I have about 1600 power, 1800 toughness (not armor), and about 1700 vitality. I hardly have any precision(barely 1k) and 0 critical damage.

Sooo toughness > vitality > power. Just a personal preference

Currently, my biggest challenge is not boffing up the attunement switches. I have Z and X as straff keys, alt is my backstep. So my hands are far down on the KB, getting up to switch attunements sometimes is a pain. These keybinds are how I play other classes and how Ive played any computer game in the last 15 years so it wont change

I also have alt+f4 out of the game when backpedaling and trying to switch to Earth