Guild Wars 2

Hi all, this is more directed at players new to the d/d ele, but more advanced players may learn something too. Before anyone mentions this I know that a fixed rotation isn’t really optimal because you need to react to any given situation. This rotation is not fixed, many skills are in brackets, it is the order of skills which is generally optimal in PvE. I have created this by looking at every rotation I could find online and a lot of theorycrafting and then finally, testing. Funnily enough, no one had hit this exact rotation although many people had similar ones some of which had the rotation for 1 attunement perfect but the rest slightly off. IMO this rotation means you will keep boons for the longest time, apply conditions for the longest times and generally provide the most solid DPS.

If anyone has any feedback to improve this or why something else is better please let me know. The rotation is below.

Air: 4|5,(2),(3)
Fire: (3),(25),4
Earth:4,(33),5,(2)
Water:3,(5),2,4 against melee, use 4,(5),2,3 against ranged

KEY
Brackets – when the situation allows for it, these skills dont always need to be used, you usually will if you can but generally it won’t matter too much. Eg. the (3) in fire can be used as a gap closer to a melee enemy or just to hit them, but dont use it if it will create distance from a ranged enemy.
4|5 – either order, usually 4,5 would be an opener or gap closer, whereas if you are already in melee range 5|4 is better.

Usually you will use fire before earth, air before fire, and water when you need it but try not to break the synergy between fire and earth.

NOTE. I havent added to the rotation utilities such as lightning flash, arcane wave, or rolls with evasive arcana. These skills are very situational so cant really be set in a rotation, but its usually obvious, anything with a blast finisher, eg roll under earth attunement with evasive arcana should be set off if there is a fire field down.

it depends on how you want to define the “optimal rotation”. I would say optimal is which results in the highest dps output. Mayby in few tiers, theoretical optimal for pure dps without outside interference, practical optimal that thinks about blasts and combo fields. And situational optimal with CC ‘n kitten, which for DD ele is basicly “blow all ur skills”. That’s why I’d keep it as clean as possible, guess the mid tier.

Standard aurashare + EA rotation, with might stacking for group.
Air 3, → swap to fire
Fire 3, 2, 5, 4 → swap to earth + dodgeblast + arcane wave in fire field
Earth 4 (only because of fireblast, never for dps), 2, (add churning 5 if alot of health left and have someone else adds a firefield)
Water 2 and 4 (if single target cut 2 midcast)
Air 1 spam (your best autoattack with direct dmg gear, against single target with other sources of burning it’s actually better just spam this than drakes breath, or cone of cold for that matter, they are the same skill from direct part).
REPEAT, you want 15 seconds to pass after burning speed to go back fire.

Morthur.3894:

nealpatel.3406:

Usually you will use earth before fire, air before earth, and water when you need it but try not to break the synergy between fire and earth.

Generally I agree with your post but the quoted text is either incorrect or I’m totally misunderstanding something:

Earth before Fire? Air before Earth?? Normally you’d want to go [Air -> ] Fire -> Earth to trigger a ton of might stacks from your fire field(s) with all those sweet finishers in the earth attunement. Don’t know why you’d go from Air to Earth to Fire. Water when you need it is OK but the other three seem strange to me.

Was that just a mistake or typo or do you want to explain the strange order of attunements?

Cheers
Morthur

Sorry, that was a typo, the synergy between fire and earth that I talk about is the blast finishers earth provides. The correct rotation is air —> fire —> earth. Thank you very much for noticing and letting me know!

Depends on the build and you’re also not factoring in utilities slots. Here’s my auramancer D/D:

Air: Shock Aura, RTL, Light Touch, Updraft
Fire: Glyph of Harmony Heal, Burn Speed, Arcane Wave (before burn speed connects), Drake Breath, Fire Grab, Ring of Fire
Earth: Magnetic Grasp/Leap, Earthquake, Churn Earth, Armor of Earth or Light Flash to get off Churning.
Water: Frost Aura, Cone of Cold, Frozen Burst, Cleansing Wave (if needed)

This is assuming you are the only one might-stacking. My build is 0/10/10/30/20.

No, this is all wrong. What you do is roll through each attunement pressing every button. 2 feet away from enemy? Ride the Lightning it is!

Remember: The most important part is to always always always make sure all skills are on CD before rolling into the next attunement.

I don’t think there is a rotation at all when playing Elementalist, you just roll with whatever your party needs at that moment.

But for burst always Burning Speed→ Ring of Fire → Fire Grab

I got almost the same as most of you guys above me. I would like to hear from other guys why you use the rotations you use, and why you skip some skills etc:

Air: 3,4,5 (Sometimes I save after the 5 and then quickly change to fire. I don’t think the number 2 is worth using in PvE. It does small damage, and the cast time is still almost a second. Sure the weakness is nice, but it’s only 5 seconds and there are other classes than can keep weakness on especially on bosses.)

Fire: 3,5,4 (If you time correctly your target is still burning after 3 so you don’t need to cast 4 before 5. I think 2 is slacking in the DPS so I skip it most of the time. I still use it as filler sometimes.)

Earth: Dodge on fire field, Arcane Wave, 4, 2, 3 only when immobilize is needed or I really want the fire aura. (5 has way too high cast time compared to the damage. Yes it is a blast finisher, but your own fire aura have ended before you finish casting it. Number 3 low DPS, and fire aura isn’t so good. It lasts only a few seconds and in that time you will most likely just get a few might stacks and other people in the party won’t anyway)

Water: 2,4 and switch back to Air after it’s out of the cooldown and start spamming Air auto attack for some time and then switch to Fire etc.

Addition to that I use water 5 and dodge when healing is needed. I don’t change from Air to Fire if I’m sure the 3 is on cooldown, because it leads you to using Fire auto attack which has lower DPS than Air.

Amplifier.1704:

5 has way too high cast time compared to the damage. Yes it is a blast finisher, but your own fire aura have ended before you finish casting it.

You have missed the fact that it doesn’t matter if the fire field from ring of fire has gone before you finish casting it. The blast finisher will apply and give you your stacks of might after the cast providing that you started the cast while the ring of fire is up. I assume here by fire aura you meant the fire combo field from ring of fire. Sorry and correct me there if I am wrong.