Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some help and/or observations regarding our nice elemental friends.

Lately I’ve felt that they are more trouble than they are worth because they seem to go and attack whoever they want! I’ve seen them do it. I’ll be running using the mouse with my hands not even ON the keyboard (grabbing a quick drink, snack, etc.) and one of them will drift over and start beating on some monster that was not attacking anyone.

At first I thought it was my imagination, or that it was me mis-targeting, so I started paying closer attention. It seems like sometimes they choose to attack on their own, sometimes they get stuck in attack mode after starting to attack, sometimes they have pathing issues that aggro things you are trying to avoid, and sometimes it just seems that mobs attack THEM because they wander too far away from you.

It can be a domino-effect problem because you can’t make them switch to your target.

Has anyone else noticed this? I don’t remember having this issue when using them in earlier levels but now at 80 I find them almost useless. I die more often to mobs that they aggro than anything else. I only feel safe pulling the elementals out if I am fighting a boss in a contained area where there is nothing to accidentally aggro.

Any ideas? I miss my elemental friends…but my real friends want me to use different skills and stop the elementals from pulling all the mobs!

I use Glyph of elementals as my elite and these are my thoughts/observations:
I don’t think they have a standby mode, they have an aggro range that is similar or larger to that of most enemies and they will run off to attack regardless of what you’re doing.
My elemental usually attacks the first enemy I have attacked, if I switch targets they tend to keep attacking the one they started with, which is fine by me xD.

I kind of think that is the point though, they’re intended to be pulled out when you’re heading into a boss battle/large battle as something to mitigate damage and give you a bit of extra help. They only last 60 seconds, so it’s not as if they’re designed to run around with you (sort of wish they would though, would be pretty cool, even if it duplicates Ranger functions).

After many levels of using Glyph of Elementals, I see the elementals as a tool to group up mobs while I’m casting Meteor Shower and Static Field. They last about five seconds, so I don’t have the problem (any more) of them drawing more enemies. Try casting it at the start of a large battle so you won’t have much time left on the summon (if it even lasts that long) when the battle’s done. Also, take a few more steps toward your target before you summon to reduce the chance of it running off.

Like all elementalist elites, this one is also situational. If you happen to be sylvari, their elite is a decent alternative. Can’t say much about the other racials since I don’t have much experience with them.

Thanks! That was helpful.

I really WANT them to be more of a constant DPS boost, and I get a kick out of running with two of them sometimes, but I guess it’s just not meant to be. I’ve found if you rotate between the elite and non-elite you can have one with you almost all the time.

It does make them fairly useless for me as a big part of the fun I have is to carefully pull difficult mobs and see if I can survive. Not helpful if my pet runs around and aggros three more that I definitely can’t take…

I’m Charr so not sure where their elite skills rate.