Guild Wars 2

Each event, I choose one of my alts and focus on that character throughout the event.

This event, it was my Elementalist. I’ve gone from 1-22 over the past few days of the break, and am about to give up on playing the character.

I have 10 points into Earth Magic, a few in Water Magic.

1-on-1, I can take out most mobs, maybe with ~ 50% health left. The second a second mob joins along, which is so easy in this game, I get slaughtered.

It may be my gear. I’m wearing lower level gear, and with the scaling in the game, in a lv14 area, I may be wearing equivalent of level 10 gear.

The class works well in groups with great healing and aoe skills, but solo PvE is just not fun for me. Even with as much toughness as I can get with the Signet and 10 points into Earth Magic, my character still gets slaughtered.

I don’t know how much more I can take before I drop the class for the remainder of the event.

the ele tank is “dont get hit”
which may sound like a bad deal but the ele is really good at this.
secondary tank is heal a lot.

ele required me to relearn how to play MMO’s in pve. especially casters.

dagger dagger is very powerful at taking out multiple non defiant mobs.

watch some videos.
if the ele is your first character you may want to try a gaurdian or warrior first to a get a feel for the game.

You are multiplying your learning curve if doing the ele first. still… some people, myself included, like that kind of difficulty. so do as you will but create a gaurdian or warrior so that when you get frustrated you have something to fall back on.

$.02

I’ve played Engineer to 40. Played Ranger to 30. Played Guardian to 20. Elementalist to 22 has been excruciatingly tough.

Play better or play a class that takes less skill.

I play a staff elementalist, currently lvl ~40. I also had some initial difficulty getting used to the squishy-ness of the class at lower levels, but bear with it.

I stack toughness and power on my gear, and somewhat less in vitality, and I can quite easily destroy groups of 4 or 5 melee NPCs without too much difficulty. Ranged NPCs are more difficult, but good use of terrain, the projectile reflect skill, and the elementalist’s ridiculous number of heals help here.

Most of my trait points are in arcane, which allows me to dance between the various attunements to maximise my damage and jump into water for a few quick heals.

The class is certainly more difficult to play than many others, but in my opinion it is more than worth the effort for its versatility. Also it is a wonderful feeling when you begin to master attunement dancing and all of your self-combos.

I’d go for 10 in arcane first for the buffs on attunement swap. It’s all about strafing and dodging while utilizing attunements. Elementalist is probably the strongest profession I’ve played in PvE.

I would look up some guides or watch some videos to help you out.

I love me ele and the challenge she brings. I normally use d/d but I also like to use staff. I am currently wearing knights gear with berserker jewels. I have 30 points in arcane and water and the other 10 in air.

Just make sure you are always switching attunements. If you have some points into arcane every time you switch to water you get regen and every time you switch to earth you get protection. It actually helps out a lot.

I found toughness and/or healing trinkets helped at lower levels if you did the d/d route. There are a few traits in water will help pop regen (5 points) and heal you (15 points) whenever you attune to water. You didn’t necessarily need to buy all the gear that had power or power/precision.

Just keep changing attunements and moving, and things should be fine.

Ele is very weak at lower levels because a lot of its staying power comes from traits and trait synergies.

If you don’t already use Dagger/Dagger switch to them when you’re playing solo. Up until level 30-35 I played with Staff and while it was possible to kill 2-3 foes a few levels above me it was tedious and took a good while. When I switched to D/D I easily roflstomped said foes.

I had a really hard time up until I stopped trying to make scepter work and just gave in to the D/D pve world. It’s sort of amazing how well it works at low levels; it’s by far the easiest character I’ve ever had.

The strategy for large pulls is simple: dart in; kill one enemy, run away until you’re full, then run back in. With current gear, almost nothing in low levels can take the abuse you dish out in fire nor can they hit you if you dart away with RTL or scoot off. Perhaps it helped that I played thief a bit first and realized how powerful positional awareness could be. Enemies have hit cones and turning speeds just like players do, and you can LOS most enemies just like you could do to a player.

I found playing the ele extremely irritating at lower levels… from about 10-25 I think it’s quite an underwhelming profession.

Once you get beyond that point and start making headway with traits, it’s actually pretty good! So my advice is just to stick at it. Try to get power/toughness/vitality gear when you can.

10 points into Arcane for elemental attunement is my early game advice. Maybe 10 in fire and 10 in earth (for the awesome emergency earth armour trait). I personally didn’t touch water until very late game and did absolutely fine

Also take advantage of mobs that have terrible pathing. I notice that risen tend to want to run through me and attack me from behind, so just by walking in a funny way, I can reduce the number of hits I receive.

I found my ele life drastically improved when I ditched s/d and went with staff. Especially once you unlock blasting staff (20 points in Arcane), you can easily get by spamming lava font, which is absolutely amazing. Particularly because mobs are so stupid, you can keep them in there all day and it does eat through them quite quickly. Ranged can be a pain so I’ll try to take them out first

Some people also cite lightning hammer as a pretty good ‘tanky’ weapon.

Go D/D and put 10 points into arcane. Takes a bit to get used to but elementalist is very survival heavy if you are playing it correctly.

KirinDave.6451:

I had a really hard time up until I stopped trying to make scepter work and just gave in to the D/D pve world. It’s sort of amazing how well it works at low levels; it’s by far the easiest character I’ve ever had.

The strategy for large pulls is simple: dart in; kill one enemy, run away until you’re full, then run back in. With current gear, almost nothing in low levels can take the abuse you dish out in fire nor can they hit you if you dart away with RTL or scoot off. Perhaps it helped that I played thief a bit first and realized how powerful positional awareness could be. Enemies have hit cones and turning speeds just like players do, and you can LOS most enemies just like you could do to a player.

It took me a long time to get into d/d. On its face it wasnt wanted i wanted from a caster and it seemed to me weak… yeah… well i did not know.
Then i got into doing my own stubborn thing…

Dagger dagger is likely the easiest weapon set to get good at as it has several natural and effective AE combos.
But i was sold on scepter/focus for the first 50 spvp games or so.
When i got good enough at spvp d/d that i could hold my own and got a little tired of it. I started working on getting my level 40 ele ready for wvw.
I have heard and i experienced that d/d if pretty great at pve. Not only does it work, I liked it AND it got me -better- at pvp with the ele.
Its all around excellent.

My Ele is level 25. I tried Staff and D/D. I’m familiar with both. Overall for solo PvE I prefer staff, it’s easy to kill mobs from range. I haven’t applied any trait points yet. I’m not getting what the problem is in this thread. What do you expect the ele to do in PvE for levels 25 and below ? Fire for kills.

Played a little more today. Stayed in earth form the entire time and it was a lot better. I guess the extra toughness from the 5pt passive trait really helps a lot. Also, took the 10pt 50% life earth barrier trait and it helps too.

Not so fragile, and I’m doing a lot better.

Oh and Dagger/Dagger is great. The others, not so much.

My view on my ele:

I like the challenge of the elementalist (the only toon I have at lvl 80). I mostly play dagger/dagger but I am trying to learn the ropes on the staff, since I kind of stuck with D/D from the beginning (heck since BWE1!) since that was so much fun.

In Orr, 3~4 risen are a joke. So I would say the survivability is quite good. Of course, traits and elite skills will really make a difference when I get myself into trouble. I would say that 20 to 40 was a bit on the tough side. Mobility is key, if you stay in one place, it’s bye bye. I am using a 0/0/30/20/20 build which of course makes me quite resilient.

One of the tough part (and challenging/fun part) is that I have noticed a “breaking” point in what I can tackle. The line between an easily doable pull (turning into extremely challenging if I do something stupid) and getting my kitten served to me raw is extremely thin. I am comparing with my necromancer that struggles with way easier pulls but mobs just take 3 and half eternities to bring me down.

With the bonuses of the Arcana/Water trait lines, I get some fun bonuses and boons when switching attunements so I am definitely not sticking into one and constantly switching (I wish I could deactivate the “WATER!!!!” call of the human female… annoying…)

This is my main, so it is the class I control best. But honestly, having tried most of them (haven’t levelled ranger or engineer yet), this is one of the toughest to master… My thief, necro and guardian are more “easy” to play while still being quite fun. If you find Elementalists to be too hard, you can switch and have fun; or you can keep trying and… have fun.

Ele sucks at lower levels. Power through, though (or craft) the levels, and you’ll find how awesome it is at level 80. Ele has a high learning curve, but once you ele-arn (get it? ele + learn hohoho it’s funny) how to play it, it’s very rewarding and fun to play.

SpelignErrir.4263:

Ele sucks at lower levels. Power through, though (or craft) the levels, and you’ll find how awesome it is at level 80. Ele has a high learning curve, but once you ele-arn (get it? ele + learn hohoho it’s funny) how to play it, it’s very rewarding and fun to play.

I found that after 10 points in arcane using d/d elementalist was near unstoppable compared to other professions I’ve played (warrior, guardian, ranger, engineer).

the journey starts when you hit lv80, don’t rush. Elementalist = godlike

How to kill mobs as an elementalist:
1) Get the skill “Lightning Hammer”.
2) Invest the points in the Fire Trait so your conjures have 10 more charges
3) Profit

All you have to do is attack with LH skill #1. Every 3rd hit is a AoE blind. You can almost always get get 3 hits in for every one attack a mob does.

You can even take out Veterans.

Caveat: This is the boring way to do it.

Im just looking at this forum and thinking why would you post about leaving a class because its too hard. The first character i ever made was an Elementalist and I admit it is hard, but doesn’t that make playing even more fun. Everybody is complaining about bad end game content, well this is the end game content for me. Its not that I like being challanged all the time, I admit it is hard and there is a lot to be learned about MMO’s and GW2 to be able to play it.

Ele survivability is awful at lower levels, they REALLY need their traits to survive.

It gets better at higher levels, a lot better.

Learn your attunements and their timings/cooldowns, in longer fights this really pays off. Keep moving when you fight, never stand still for more than a second or two.

I put my first trait points into air for the speed bonus, then arcane.

You have to learn to play the class or you won’t survive long at all. Furthermore you have to gear it right. Glass cannon is a no-no

Elementalist = godlike

If you enjoy being forced into D/D, yes.

If you want to use any other weapon, not even in your dreams.

ELEMENTALIST LACKS SURVIABILITY HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA prolly the class who has the best survivability of all

Pft, in pve with staff I’m unkillable

1. l2dodge. no explanation needed.
2. l2spec. basically, the fire spec tree is almost useless for an ele while arcana is almost necessary.
3. l2notusestaff. seriously. staff is probably the worst weapon set of any profession for soloing. After the nerfs suffered before the release of the game, solo elementalists are required to dance around more than thieves and play a purely melee role. use dual dagger for dps and scepter dagger for burst.
4. l2attunementswap. restricting yourself to 1 element is using only 25% of your potential. saddled with both low damage output AND excruciatingly high cooldowns, you are forced to put points into arcana and swap attunements constantly.
5.l2knowwhatyourskillsdo. You can heal back 70% of your hp within 3 seconds with dual dagger and your 6 skill even if you don’t have cleric’s gear or have 30pts into water (i still highly recommend at least 15pts) that’s something around 8-11k hp easily.

If you can do all this, you’ll be extremely survivable. armor of earth basically gives you a 30% larger health pool. final shielding and arcane shield means 6 hits worth of invincibility (no matter how powerful each hit is), and with 15 points into water, your 3 main heals (1-1.5k just by attuning to water, 1-1.5k from cleansing wave, 4-6k from whatever 6 skill you’re using) will heal you for most of your health and will give 3k back to most of your allies… not to mention the on-demand condition removal it gives. With dagger offhand, you even gain access to 2 knockbacks/stuns.

if you’re one for escapability, there’s an app for that too. ride the lightning means you’re almost as fast as shortbow thieves. and arcane shield means you don’t take damage, which also means you don’t get bumped down to combat speed if you’re hit with arcane shield on.

Even though arenanet was brutal to the profession, elementalist can still be a very fun class to play once you get past the learning curve. I’ve logged 500 hours on my ele alone, but have multiple alts in levels ranging between 30-80. after playing ele, no other class can rival the profession in terms of depth (though mesmers do come close imo) and versatility, and no other class comes close in terms of button mashing fun.

Intigo.1653:

Play better or play a class that takes less skill.

Actually I play this class well and it is the class with the worst survivabilty in the game. It’s extremely versatile but that also makes it the most vulnerable.

One thing that really bugs me about my ele is the many bugs it has and how you can press one of the atunements and it won’t change or you can cast glyph of elementalist and it summons one from an atunement you aren’t in. My favorite thing ATM is how you can press your health button and it doesn’t activate.

I do like the extreme helpfulness in your comment though. That really provides a lot to the discussion. One sec I think my nose just grew about 6 feet long.

Drew.1865:

Intigo.1653:

Play better or play a class that takes less skill.

Actually I play this class well and it is the class with the worst survivabilty in the game.

Either you’re telling a funny joke or you’re just plain bad.

Josh P.1296:

Drew.1865:

Intigo.1653:

Play better or play a class that takes less skill.

Actually I play this class well and it is the class with the worst survivabilty in the game.

Either you’re telling a funny joke or you’re just plain bad.

Bad as in one sec lemme put my staff down so I can res this OP d/d ele in this dungeon because staffs are pointless bad?

Josh P.1296:

Drew.1865:

Intigo.1653:

Play better or play a class that takes less skill.

Actually I play this class well and it is the class with the worst survivabilty in the game.

Either you’re telling a funny joke or you’re just plain bad.

Or maybe bad like as in Sea of Sorrows wvw rank?

Drew.1865:

Josh P.1296:

Drew.1865:

Intigo.1653:

Play better or play a class that takes less skill.

Actually I play this class well and it is the class with the worst survivabilty in the game.

Either you’re telling a funny joke or you’re just plain bad.

Or maybe bad like as in Sea of Sorrows wvw rank?

You’re obviously mad right now because I called you bad and hit a nerve. I think it is because of this that you failed to make any sense in your previous 2 posts.

If you think ele has low survivability you are either playing poorly, or doing something wrong.

http://www.twitch.tv/saetiasc/b/349249489

skip to 1:01:00, and that will give you an idea of how survivable eles are

Wear all PVT gear and you’ll never need to worry about getting hit again.

The first twenty or thirty levels where hell, and I nearly hung it up too. As some have mentioned, part of playing the elementalist requires a paradigm shift in thinking compared to cloth caster classes in other games.

Survivability lends itself very well. The earth/water lines give strong substance to survivability, even with damage oriented traits selected. The arcane line, unfortunately, gives the class a myriad of things that probably should be baseline—Elemental Attunement feels absolutely mandatory and I really couldn’t imagine playing without it, as the biggest example(the second being the "make staff AE effects larger, which could be reworded to “make staff worth bothering with” and still be accurate).

I could never come to terms with the scepter or a focus. While I like the focus abilities, the scepter is so poor that I just can’t bring the defensive focus into play very well, and with the dagger the offhand dagger compliments it to such a large degree that the focus just seems out of the question.

The staff seems to give a much more “caster like” benefit all around. Great AOE, strong cripples, and strong survivability/utility. It does seem to lack pretty heavily in burst damage but handles well with a sustained damage/utility oriented build.

I use staff as an ele, I can stack 25 might no problem (giving me 3500 power), I have 20k health and I use cantrips. I… do…. not… die. Staff elementalists in pve are plenty powerful and have a ton of utility in snares, AoE damage (which most classes in this game lack) and that wonderful AoE condition removal we call healing rain. If you’re having issues surviving, you need to go read a few more guides and get some new armor or something. You’re doing something terribly wrong.

I am a lvl 80 staff elementalist since I got my first staff at very low lvl, and trust me, you can begin to do some AOE farming if you have glyph of storm.

With my lvl 80 gears, I can kill at least 6-7 mobs at the same time without a sweat, but when I was low lvl like around 20, I could also kill at least 3 mobs at the same time without any problem.

Glyph of storm (In Earth) and Frozen ground is your key to survive, using this 2 skills should give you enough time to AOE the mobs to death.

how do you handle 2 BS thiefs, was playing spvp and the other team had 2-3 of them and it was a gank fest :/ , god help me if i get rooted they just burst me down even the HS spammers get their licks in..

I handle them pretty easily, they never kill me cause I don’t sPVP

My ele is still little (lv 10 ish) but you really need to be switching atunements regularly and use the cc or mobility from each attunement.

Using D/D as an example, in Air, pop the shield(#3) ride the lightening to the enemy(or group of enemies) use the #2 for weakness. Switch to earth, pop arcance shield to block, cast earth 5, earth 3 + 4 for the stun and earth 2 for more aoe dmg, then go into fire, heal if needed and finish them off.

First time through on an ele in beta I stuck to staff, I can say D/D is so far much more fun and far easier to deal with multiple mobs.

In my case really depends on the person and the enemy. If you don’t like being a D/D combination you are gonna need to have a lot of attunment switching and a lot of kiting.
But the main reason an Ele really is durable is because they have lots of control abilities

I constantly see people saying that Elementalists have low survivability at lower levels. I didn’t remember any such thing on my Ele. I burned, no pun intended, through low level content faster than I could with virtually any other class except my warrior alt (since greatsword is a one-hit kill weapon untill about lvl 40).

What I did see is that many lowbie elementalists seem to think that facetanking is a good way to play an elementalist. It is definately not. You have to dodge, strafe, control and evade like your life depends on it. And it does. And when you get the hang of it, you will barely even get hit. Let alone die.

I went lvl 1-80 using arcane wave and conjure hammer.

Once I hit 80 I went d/d bunker. I have 4 lvls 80s and its my only toon that can 1v1 a vet karka in pve and 2 thieves at wvw.

My Elementalist is full power tough vita, and i cant see the lack of survability… 3300 atack, 2700 tough, 15k hp. Not the best build for pvp but its cool on dungeons and wvw. Gonna work on asura tier 3 armor and bifrost next

Play what you like and adapt the class you are playing. U cant play an engineer or a ranger the same way u play an elementalist.

Just strafe…

99% of the mobs out there until you reach about 70 where risen make up the bulk of stuff can’t hit you if you just strafe in a circle by holding back and strafe left/right. Dungeons are a different story of course.

I’m confused by people saying ele sucks at low level.

I’ve run d/d and s/d and I find that I kill faster than most classes, and have no problem surviving.

katniss.6735:

Wear all PVT gear and you’ll never need to worry about getting hit again.

Exactly what I started doing… I need four sets of the stuff for four different sup rune set ups… AC 24/7 anyone?

sup fire x 2 sup hoelbrak x 2 sup strength x 2 (+ 1 of these for re-breathers)
lyssa x 6 (7 for re-breathers)
and 5 x soldier + an orb or crest for the head and re-breather.

It’s not that bad right? And you can always gather a few through the use of PvP emblems too.