Guild Wars 2

Hello all, I’m new to GW2, just bought a HoT Ultimate bundle and thought I would jump into the game. Playing a Human Elementalist, currently level 11. My plan is to be able to solo effectively through PvE, and to level methodically. Not looking to race to the finish, but I am looking to bring as much DPS to each fight as I can and still be VERY survivable.

I don’t mind spending on gems or gold if it makes the game more fun. I should also mention that usually in these games my fun is the journey while leveling, usually after hitting max level I retire the character and start a new and different one. So I want to have as much fun going from 1 to 80, as I don’t know whether I would continue to play on the character after.

I am confused or uncertain about several things, as to what is the most effective choice for both survivability and massive DPS:

1) Do I gear for precision or power? I purchased two completely different sets of armor levels 6/7, one Mighty/power the other Precise/precision. I then slotted in +10 power upgrades in the former and +10 precision upgrades in the latter.

I also got two staffs, one Mighty and one Precise. With all my Mighty stuff equipped I have a Power of 189, a Crit Chance of 13.4%, and a Crit Damage of 151.3%. And with all my Precise stuff equipped I have a Power of 119, a Crit Chance of 45.42%, and a Crit Damage of 151.3%

Which sets yields better numbers? I tried doing some limited testing in the world, but I wasn’t sure either set up was better than the other. Is there a test server or danger room or some way in GW2 to run effectiveness testing against dummies or something?

For best effectiveness, how do I balance gearing for Power vs Precision?

2) Weapons: Staff, Main Dagger, Sceptre, Off Dagger, Focus. Which combo of Weapons do I want to use for survivable high DPS PvE solo’ing? What element? Been using Staff/Fire mostly (don’t even have earth yet) – not sure that these skills are the fastest way to defeat baddies.

3) Training – how best to spend Hero Points. For a guy who wants to solo PvE, be very survivable but also very fast to defeat enemies, what are the first, most effective Skills and Traits to buy with Hero Points? (Of course I only have 6 Hero Points right now, but my understanding is that I get another 5 HP every two levels, so I am looking to see what I should be focused on getting in what order.)

As I understand it there is NO respec or retrain option, so this makes it all the more important to spend your early HP wisely – help?

4) How to get more Hero Points faster – do Hero Challenges found in various areas, right? Can you do the same Hero Challenge multiple times? Is it on a cool down, say 24 hours? Or can you do each one only once?

I think that may be a good start, thanks for all your advice as we roll along!

I am still in need of advice. Thanks.

Staff is good for PvE levling. Stick to it for now. Fire for shure is best. when you learn elementalist you will realize changing elements in a fight is helpful.
Gear: You don´t need to buy gear for levling. Take what you find. Power + Precision is what helps most. You buy a full exotic set at level 80. Stats depend on what you like after playing ele for a while.
Doing hero challenges is good. Unless you like map exploration jsut get hero points. also Exploring helps in levling.
Also use food. Its extra XP and not expensive. Cheap food. For fire staff somethign with power but its realy more for the XP so take what you get/find.

Take salvage kits and collect materials for later. Crafting will get you a few levels too. A cook is helpfol here. the food you create hepls you levling :-).

For training order:

I recomend fire + Signets .
then air + Glyphs: glyphs of storms + elementals help a lot in PvE especially solo.

I will start by answering the last questions first :P

1. To get Hero Points faster you need to do more Hero Challenges yes. But you can only do 1 challenge once, that is you cant repeat them for more kitten Points. Because of that you have to map exploring and find Hero challenges in other different areas.

2. As for spending Hero Points, since you are still pretty low lvl and are currently doing PVE to lvl up, you will want skills that helps you do so.

I havent really lvld up myself with this new skill/trait-Hero-Point system since it was so long ago. But for useful utility skills for PVE I personally use:
– Armour of Earth
– Arcane Shield
– Frost Bow/Arcane Wave/whatever-I-feel-like

You will probably want the Glyphs of Elemental Elite / Lesser elemental since they are pretty good tanks that can help you solo against a bit tougher opponents.

As for the traits, I think Fire is a pretty good start PVE-wise. What you choose next is up mostly up to you. If you feel squishy you might wanna go Water/Arcane since those are traits are pretty useful.
(From personal experience I do have a vague memory of some of the Personal Story mobs being a real pain around lvl 60-ish+, so I’d say by that time you might wanna have at least Arcane unlocked for the traits Renewing Stamina for more dodges and Evasive Arcana for dodge-healing in water)

3. As for weapons, I’ll just say use whatever you feel is fun, and feel comfortable using. Theres no use for super-high-DPS if you spend half of the time being dead and the other half running away from things cause you dont wanna get 1-shot-killed :P.
Although for DPS Staff with Fire-traits is very very very very nice though, especially with those elementals helping you tank.

Lack of time to write now….. But as for equipments, remember to keep them updated for your lvl. BUT dont spend too much on equips till your higher lvl to save gold! ^^

To be honest i am a big fan of the slow leveling thing, i generally do it with world exploration, the slowest way possible. That being said i am kind of confused about your play style.

My main is an ele, and i will tell you up front, that there isn’t as much of a middle ground, especially since you are talking about playing below level 80, if you want that sweet burst dps then you will have to play as a glass cannon so fire+air+arcana. Switch arcana for water for a tiny bit of survival but in all honesty you will have to be level 80 to actually enjoy the full benefits of this. In your case stick to fire and then either train air for more damage or water for a bit more healing.

Ele is the squishiest class in the game by far, lowest armor with lowest health and gear becomes obsolete so fast while you level that it’s pointless to bother upgrading it with sigils and runes. The gear will become obsolete in mere hours as absolutely everything gives xp and levels you up and gear drops are plentiful .

I would say that for leveling you want scepter+focus, this should provide decent survival and damage then grab gear and focus on power and vitality stats for leveling. The whole "epic solo, i am the god of all that is great and shiny " kind of only happens at level 80 for eles.

If you go to the pvp lobby you can try builds and skills on dummies and such. As far as resetting your traits goes, you can modify your traits and skills any time your are out of combat, doesn’t cost anything, you just need to have the traits you want to switch unlocked with hero points(and yes they do become unlocked forever so you only pay the cost once). You can only do a hero challenge once per character.

You should be warned though that while elementalist is an incredibly fun profession it also takes time to master so don’t be surprised when enemies stomp all over you, learn from it and with a little patience you can have fun in any part of the game, be it pve, pvp or wvw.

If you are into min-maxing, I have good news for you: It’s easy in GW2. Any direct damage scales linearly with the weapon strength and power:

Effective Power = Weapon Strength * Power * skill coefficient * (1 + crit chance * crit multiplier).

There is no base + Power * coefficient scaling for direct damage (condition damage has it, though)

EP of first combo: 189 * (1+0.134*0.513) = 201.99
EP of second combo: 119 * (1+0.4542*0.513) = 146.73

Assuming the weapons are of equal level and rarity (blue, green), so that the weapon damage is equal, the mighty staff is better. Later, you’ll find two-stat gear (strong = power + precision) and three-stat gear (berserker’s = power + precision + feriocity (crit dmg)). As a rule of thumb, power scales the best, in a fully buffed, 5 man group assassin’s (precision + power + feriocity) can be better, but not by much.

That said, I think you are overthinking it, and you should worry about that later. Levelling is rather fast, and low-level gear is relatively expensive for new players (because low level materials have use for max level characters), so don’t waste too much money on levelling gear. If you upgrade, upgrade weapons first, because they offer a nice chunk of stats and offer the weapon strength to scale as well.

The hero points are one-time only. When you level up to 80, you automatically have enough hero points to unlock every skill and trait. The hero points in the maps help you to aquire skills and traits early (and to unlock the Elite spec – Tempest – if you have HoT). The Cantrips are your to-go defensive skills. Glyph of Storms offers both offensive and defensive AoEs, depending on the element you are casting it (not sure how deep that is in the glyphs tree). Arcanes are damaging skills, but Arcane Shield is also a nice defensive option.

1. Gear for power, it’s by far your pest stat while leveling. Precision naturally complements power and the more precision you have the more valued ferocity will be. Have as much toughness/vitality as makes you comfortable while leveling.

2. Staff is probably the best weapon for glass cannons because of range and AOE. It’s also the go-to weapon for group content. Daggers are great and especially fun too, though of course you need to be in melee, which is very managable though with experience. Focus is good if you need the survivability though usually in pve dagger would be preferred especially while leveling. Scepter is our weakest weapon though it works well for leveling with it’s big burst abilities with low cooldown on fire 2 and 3. You can also consider the conjured weapons to help out your chosen weapon’s weakness in pve.
Staff fire autoattack is amazing, as is dagger air autoattacks. All other autoattacks are weaker than those (dagger fire is good too though and air staff can work too).

3. You can only do each hero challange once. Though you get enough points with leveling to 80 without any challanges to unlock all your skills and traits. Hero challanges only help you get them earlier and bunk points for the elite spec.
You’ll probably want to unlock glyphs in pve for the damage and utility, maybe cantrips if you feel you need the survivability. Unlocking signet of air is also great for movement speed.
Traitwise I’d go fire or air first, air is nice for the movement speed again, and with dagger. Fire is great with all weapons. Earth is mostly defense as is water. Arcane can work too as your first line though air and fire probably offer more immediate benefits.

I actually think it’s easier to level with MH Dagger spamming Air 1 than it is with Staff, personally.

Conjure Lightning Hammer also helps a fair bit if you want to mindlessly thomp around as an imitation of Thor.

It hits hard and the auto attack chain blinds foes!

Plus it is quite the manly weapon.

Wow, that’s a lot of great advice, exactly what I was looking for. If anyone else wants to chime in, please keep it coming. I will read and digest when I get some time, and ask followup questions. My two favorite things are not dying and taking down enemies fast. The challenge is to find a way to combine both. Ultimately, I would probably take not dying over quick kills, but long drawn out fights mean more damage done to me, so unless I can make sure that a long fight doesn’t = I die anyways, I would be leery of reducing damage. For example, trading away dps for 2x health but making the fight take 3x long is a bad trade. Trading for 3x health and 2x long fight would probbaly be a good one. It all depends.

Thanks!

For a new player you’re looking at this to statistically, oh well.
1: Gear
My general rule of thumb is, pick armor up which are better than yours, and only catch the rest up every 20 levels.
(Example, I’m leveling from 10-30, and in that process I have refreshed my old armor with what I’ve found, the gear I am not able to replace (Like for instance, a helmet you had from level 13) you can just buy a new one in the trading post)
I like to go with more precision, since I love seeing big numbers, but seeing the other posts you can better go with a focus on power.

2). Weapons
There are 3 main weapon sets (actually, they are the only 3 weapon setf for ele), staff, scepter/X (focus/dagger) or dagger/X( focus/dagger).
The good thing is, that for elementalist all the weapons are useful.
For leveling I sticked with the staff, it has a really clear role of:
fire=>damage, water=>healing, lightning=> control and earth=> condition damage&defense.
This, together with the lack of switching attunements to much in an intensive way lets you get used to the utility skills and the feel of the attunement with the switching of it.
Heck, one of the highest dps chains evolves around using 3 skills of cooldown on fire staff.

Scepter&Dagger are a lot more harder, while a staff fits the view as a caster, the dagger is generally used to support parts of your utility, while dagger is used for the real ninjas out there.
Scepter is generally the hardest to learn, (I’ve been leveling an ele, and after hitting 80+buying everything exotic (90 hours) I equiped a scepter for the first time.
Why? Scepter isn’t much about dealing a lot of damage, yes it has nice damageing skills, but it has more skills which can be combined to getter to buff yourself, but you get to know that later.

Dagger is the second weapon I learned to use, after level to 45 using staff I started using D/D, you can pretty much imagine a D/D elementalist flying through enemies, doing nice damage while keep a personal contact with them (until they’re dead of course).
So in short, I used staff until lvl 45 (I’ll explain it later) and went on with D/D.D/F and staff when I felt like it.

3). training
Suprise! I leveled my ele in 2 weeks and I can remember everything from it.
First of all, the first ~30 levels you should only get what you need in utility skills, and spare HPoints out for traits, while you do get full hero points from just leveling it’s nice to have an extra in the start.
What I did was getting a signet of fire, a glyph of storms, and after you completed your first trait line arcane blast. (editing in, signet of air is really useful for your first 45 levels)
Signet of fire is awesome, and hasn’t moved away from my skill bar for 8/9 of my elementalist playtime, it’s a straight dps increase to keep it, but it’s better to not use it.
glyph of storm is just a more utility like form of meteor shower, fire gives burning and is a little bit weak, ice gives chill (enemies move slower and hit slower) and is your second best defensive option, air gives your enemy pretty much 15-25 vulnerability (one vulnerability=1% damage)depending on how big they are, meaning it’s the best offensive spell, and earth is your best defensive skill, since it pulses blind 10 times, meaning that in that area your enemies is not going to be able to hit you for 10 times.

Then there’s also arcane wave, or you could use glyph of lesser elemental to have a buddy helping you.
Back to arcane wave, it does a decent amount of damage on a ~30 second cooldown, but the important part is that it’s a blast finisher.
GW2 has a certain mechanics that some skills have a specific mechanic, a field and a finisher.
A field is a thing on the ground and is generally the result of a spell, a finisher is only momentum but is also a result of a spell.
Scepter and dagger both has a lot of fields and finishers, but the staff only has 1 blast finisher (one of the most useful out there) and ALOT of fields.
And since that one blast finisher is also hard to comeby, the best thing you can do is to equip arcane wave, and have an instant blast finisher on demand.
And why are these combos so useful? you MIGHT ask, it’s because they are awesome and elementalist is one of the best ways to discover their true power.
you see, everytime you use the second and fourth skill on staff, there’s a small field which does damage to your enemies, right?
Now, if you use arcane wave on it you’ll do more damage (you gain 3 might) and with a trait you also gets 10 seconds of 20% extra crit!
And not only for damage, your staff water also has 2 water fields (#3&#5), using an arcane wave in that will heal you and your allies!
I’m losing track here, oops.

4). HP gaining
Yes you automatically get all the hero points you need, but there’s no fun in that, just do like I do and, everytime you jump into the game you don’t think about a mathimathical way to earn XP fast, you just walk around in a world and get distracted, it can go from having a vista you’re determined to get, a weird conversation of 2 people obviously going to have sex, or any other weird stuff like walking around and suddently meet 50 people standing there, in that case just ask around, because there’s one particular event in the human areas which is cinematically just awesome.

Oh, and overall inventory problems? easy to fix
1). deposit all materials
2).go to the trading post and see if something is of some value in there
3 sell it
4 mystic forge or salvage the rest
4.5 deposit all materials and use the luck
5 go a merchant and click on sell junk (or do that first, doesn’t matter)

1.5 can be picking up the good stuff for yourself.
8 slot bags are btw really cheap in the trading post, go look for them.

And for your question, the best way of taking damage is avoiding damage, as a dagger/focus elementalist you are quick, with traits you can easily evade or dodge, whilke having most of your 4&5 skills to defend your self (I guess making yourself INVULNERABLE for 3 seconds is pretty "not dying, right?)

And about the traits, the first line you should get is fire, it is the straight damage line, let’s you do more damage, have shorter cooldowns, and make your time blasting fields easier while granting extra crit chance.
The second line comes at level 45, you can better pick air since there’s a trait granting you 25% movement speed, and some other super useful skills as well.
After you completed the second line you can go crazy and go unlock every other utility skill, teleporting around or spawning a shield to bash foes isn’t efficient, but can definitely be fun!

If you live in the europe you can just tell me, I might not be the best player of all time but I do know how newbs (and especialy newbs trying to get better) think, since I am always that person.

Don’t worry about gear too much while leveling. Look for Power, Precision, ferocity, toughness in that order of importance.

Make sure you buy cheap food (use the TP > Other > Food Effects). A good one that is REALLY cheap is Strawberry Ghost though it requires level 25 (gives you 15% bonus EXP)

Make sure you also buy cheap Utility (use the TP > Other > Utility Effects). There is no cheap 15% exp buff for utility (only a spendy one), so just pick a cheap one that will boost either power or precision and give you 10% bonus EXP.

Another tip while leveling in the open world: If you see Yellow mobs (ie: dolyaks, deer, stag, etc.), chances are no one has killed it in a very long time if at all. GW2 has a sliding bonus XP scale that increases the longer a mob has been alive in the open world. So when you are sort of off the beaten path, and you see yellow mobs like these, or even mobs in general that you think people haven’t dealt with, slay them all. The bonus exp alone in a group of say, 4 or 5 mobs will be worth more than doing an entire dynamic event.

Bhima.9518:

Another tip while leveling in the open world: If you see Yellow mobs (ie: dolyaks, deer, stag, etc.), chances are no one has killed it in a very long time if at all. GW2 has a sliding bonus XP scale that increases the longer a mob has been alive in the open world. So when you are sort of off the beaten path, and you see yellow mobs like these, or even mobs in general that you think people haven’t dealt with, slay them all. The bonus exp alone in a group of say, 4 or 5 mobs will be worth more than doing an entire dynamic event.

Any sources on this? I didn’t know about this and it’s pretty interesting if it’s true.

Make sure you do not spend a fortune on gear but here are some advices:

Never let the weapon be more then 5 levels below your current level! Same goes for armour but the number here is 10 levels. I usually re-gear my toon every 5-10 levels. I used to buy some cheap sigils (nothing special, water, air, fire sigils and for example Sigil of intelligence are so cheap… If you find a level-appropiate weapon (or buy one sometimes) it well worth it.

Do not bother with accessories or armour runes!

Note: if you start crafting you can make levelling easier. First it gives you a huge XP bonus (since you enjoy the sheer experience of the levelling this might be not a good idea for you…) and you can sell the stuff you make (and obviously keep one for yourself at ever 5 levels). But if you want profit this is a BAD way! The raw materials can be sold sometimes three times the price of the crafted item.

Oh, one more thing: IceBow and an elemental can make your life much-much easier!

And please! Try every weapon! You may want to be a ranged wizard but after doing 5-6 levels with Dagger/Focus you may want to be a kitten spell-ninja-warrior-thingy

Like I did

As for leveling, don’t mind the stats. You’ll have great use of any of them, even defensive stats. Staff is really good with the dodge roll from fire and high damage AoE. Most of the time you’ll stay untouched as mobs will die before reaching you.

I recently played around leveling in open world Core GW2 and honestly, things hit so softly that there’s very little reason to build defensively while leveling. There doesn’t even seem to be a reason to kite things around. Things just die if you have any modicum of damage.

For your first trait line, just go Fire if you use Staff or Air if you use Dagger. For your second trait line, take Fire or Air (the one you didn’t take for your first). Take “Pyromancer’s Training”, and take “Aeromancer’s Training” if you use Dagger.

Your weapon is the most important part of your build – both statwise, as well as for playstyle. The higher level and higher quality of your weapon, THE MORE DAMAGE YOU WILL DO. Therefore, it is almost always worth your time to keep your weapon up to date, because it will most dramatically affect your damage over anything else.

Prioritize maxing Power, then Precision, then Ferocity.

Seriously consider using MH Dagger. While Staff is an incredible weapon, a great deal of its damage is basically waiting for ticks of Lava Font (Fire Staff 2) to tick on enemies. Dagger, on the other hand, just goes about spamming Lightning Whip (Air Dagger 1) over and over again for lots of quick easy damage to level quickly.

If you at all want more advice, feel free to talk to me in-game (my username is shown right here, of course).

sindyr.5306:

My two favorite things are not dying and taking down enemies fast.

Me too!

Has anyone suggested Mist Form yet? I would keep that in your utils while levelling. It’ll get you out of many tight situations.

I use Dagger/Focus for a more fast-paced style than staff. Ele was my first build, and is currently my main build. I’m still learning how to play ele, but my learning really skyrocketed when I switched over to D/F because you get a feel on how to change attunements on the fly and taking a mental note on the cooldowns of your skills on non-active attunements. Also you learn to stack plenty of might, which is beneficial for both you and those around you (should you run into a group event).

Leveling up I’ve never really bought any gear. You get decent gear from drops and from story missions that will carry you all the way to 80.