Guild Wars 2

There’s no way I should be only doing 106 damage per hit at lvl 66 is there? I am getting 3 shot destroyed by anything veteran, cannot do damage and cannot take it.

I am playing D/D with 0 0 0 26 30. Cannot finish lvl 62 story missions at lvl 66, got defeated twice by 3 lvl 55 grawl. I just do not seem to be able to fight anything.

I am not a noob, I have 5xlvl 80s but I just cannot get my head around why Elementalist is such utter weak ****.

Anyone got any tactics for me? Cheers.

With the details provided, I don’t know what you hope we could tell you other than the standard, “You’re doing something wrong.”

The Elementalist is a very difficult class to play and to level. I have a guide that explains how to play it in my sig.

Go with 30 in Arcana, 20 in water, and take Arcana V VI XI and Water V VI.

Look at the guide in my sig. For Dagger Dagger, look at Zoose’s Guide. He has a really really great video guide that you should check out that explains the mentality of playing a D/D Ele.

Basically, the Ele has incredibly weak inherent stats because it has a lot of potential to do some really crazy strong stuff. It’s definitely not for everyone. If you hate playing the Ele and can’t keep up with its playstyle, then certainly, don’t play it. But if you really want to see how the class is supposed to work in PvE, look at my guide for some advice.

Elementalists don’t really shine until they obtain gear and traits. For leveling up, I recommend using Soldier’s rares. Upgrading every 10 levels should be sufficient. Once you hit 80, you can build pretty much anything and do reasonably well. I still recommend using Soldier’s or Sentinel’s until you master the Ele to a reasonable degree, but then you can transition to a more balanced spec, if not a full glass cannon.

Also, in PvE, you should consider a focus off-hand if you’re doing poorly. You don’t need Ride the Lightning nearly as much against AI and the extra defensive skills could make the difference between taking the mobs out and spending quality time with the floor.

GuzziHero.2467:

There’s no way I should be only doing 106 damage per hit at lvl 66 is there? I am getting 3 shot destroyed by anything veteran, cannot do damage and cannot take it.

I am playing D/D with 0 0 0 26 30. Cannot finish lvl 62 story missions at lvl 66, got defeated twice by 3 lvl 55 grawl. I just do not seem to be able to fight anything.

I am not a noob, I have 5xlvl 80s but I just cannot get my head around why Elementalist is such utter weak ****.

Anyone got any tactics for me? Cheers.

just use lightning hammer and blind your foes to death.

As Neko suggested, Ele – especially D/D – is a very active playstyle. If you have 5 other level 80’s, chances are you’ve played several classes where you can just auto-attack your way through PvE and be just fine.

D/D Ele just isn’t like that. You’re severely kitten if you’re trying to play that “MH Axe Warrior” style.

Ok, I am running D/D. I was running cleric gear since I was told vit was important, just switched to Knights (lvl 65) with upgrades focusing on vit.

I am running combos: usually earthshake and churning earth, shocking aura updraft and RTL, then to fire to finish with burning speed drakes breath and ring of fire. I am trying to stack conditions, knockdown the enemy and keep as mobile as I can.

I had an lvl 72 before before I deleted it because in the krait orb line I died continuously against Head Slaver Nymfassa in Intercepting The Orb… when I was lvl 72 with all rare gear.

@OP, your reasoning is wrong but your conclusion is correct. Anet nerfed ele’s to complete kitten.

Go full Berserker gear. No wonder you’re having problems.

Huh… I do more damage with water #1 and #2 than any other attack except Churning Earth?

Lol I recently decided to finish up the story mode missions on my Elementalist which was around lvl 70-80.

I used a 15/15/15/15/10 build that primarily used the attunement swap procs with dagger/focus (not an optimal build!). It’s pretty easy even without the max traits. I’d suggest learning your weapons better. If a situation arises, swap your utilities and weapons. No point in kittening yourself with daggers when you can just easily plow through a situation using a staff and AoE’ing everything from safety or popping on a focus to keep NPCs and yourself alive easier.

Your best autoattack is Lightning Whip.

Lightning Whip…so much love for the awesomeness.

GuzziHero.2467:

I am not a noob, I have 5xlvl 80s but I just cannot get my head around why Elementalist is such utter weak ****.

We’re really bad at leveling. We can’t just sit there and facetank mobs. We have to kite them around a bunch, which slows things down, and we can’t build too much damage because we’ll just get popped by world boss attacks.

A few tips:

1) Try out S/D if D/D feels too dangerous to you. S/D has better burst than D/D and while it arguable has less sustained DPS, you also don’t have to spend quite as much time kiting and have better (IMO) defensive options. For my playstyle, at least, I’ve found S/D to be much more rewarding and safe.

2) Glyph of Lesser Elementals and Glyph of Elementals together can give you almost 100% uptime of a summonable tank to hide behind. Use it in Earth and almost nothing you’ll face outside of Champions will be able to kill the li’l guys. Having someone else for the mobs to focus can really help take the pressure off you to DPS them.

3) Glyph of Storms in Earth pulses blinds. Dropping it on a group of mobs will pretty much shut down their damage while it lasts. You can also use it in Fire or Air for extra AoE damage.

4) Lightning Hammer’s autoattack actually has extremely high damage, as well as a blast finisher that blinds on the 3rd attack. I didn’t use it while leveling but I hear a lot of people got good use out of it.

5) The Krait personal story missions seriously suck. Try to get someone to help you with them.

I never used glyphs before, trying them now and they are working out quite well for me, cheers! How would you recommend I trait for them?

Here’s roughly what I use for my Ele.

Inscription (the 20-point Air trait) is a great trait. When running around the map, it gives you permaswiftness just by popping your heal. In a fight, it gives you much more protection uptime by casting it in water, even more Regen by popping it in water, and even more might by casting it in fire. You get to decide dynamically what you need at any given point. A warning: it’s bugged with Glyph of Elementals (the elite) and doesn’t trigger off it.

It’s somewhat between the standard 0/10/0/30/30 bunker build and the newfangled Fresh Air 0/30/0/X/X build. You can actually put the last 10 points I have in Water in either Air (for Fresh Air, to seriously increase your burst) or in Arcana (for Evasive Arcana, to take advantage if your permavigor and constant Sigil of Energy procs), whatever you like. I put them in Water partially because I’m lazy and like having one-button permaswiftness and a bit more health, and partially because it’s better for Staff (which I sometimes switch to as the situation demands) but it’s really up to you. I’d probably switch around a lot more but I hate paying respec fees.

For utilities, Lighting Flash is just so strong with off-hand dagger. It lets you hit with Earth #5 without having to stand in the middle of the crowd for 3 seconds and combines with Ride the Lightning for epic escapes. It pretty much never leaves my bar. Mist Form is really strong too, not so much for for the stunbreaker and invulnerability per se but because you can perform invulnerable resses or stomps with it. I sometimes swap it out for Armor of Earth if I’d rather be able to continue DPSing after stunbreaking. The Glyph changes based on the situation. I like Glyph of Storms these days but Glyph of Lesser Elementals is probably safer for leveling. Glyph of Elemental Power can turn the staff’s Meteor Storm into a massive weakening field or Air’s autoattack into almost perma-cripple.

Basically, I like to highlight the Ele’s flexibility as much as possible and this is the build that does that the best for me. It doesn’t do much better than anyone else but I can do exactly what I want to do at any given time, switching for moderate DPS to decent support to strong control, or even bunkering down for a while. It’s what works for me in PvE, dungeons, and WvW, anyway.

There’s an Air Trait that gives CDR for glyphs.

Given that, I personally wouldn’t recommend sticking with glyphs once you reach max level. I can see the case for it when you’re leveling, however. Keeping Glyph of Elementals (the Elite and the Utility slot versions) sounds like a pretty OK idea for leveling, but I actually don’t think you really need to trait for them.

I also think that going full damage gear would really help. Contrary to what other people say, I think that full Berserkers is the best way to go once you reach Level 60 because it will allow you to burst things down before they can kill you. Generally your opening on enemies should be a Fire 3 or Fire 4 followed up with Earth 2 or Earth 4, and then autoattacking with Lightning Whip till stuff goes off cooldown (attuning to and dodge rolling in Water for heals). The Ele is very unlike other classes in that it relies on using several (+8) skills to make the most use out of it, rather than focusing on a toolbox of 3 or 4 skills that are very powerful.

Neko.9021:

There’s an Air Trait that gives CDR for glyphs.

Given that, I personally wouldn’t recommend sticking with glyphs once you reach max level. I can see the case for it when you’re leveling, however. Keeping Glyph of Elementals (the Elite and the Utility slot versions) sounds like a pretty OK idea for leveling, but I actually don’t think you really need to trait for them.

Yeah, I probably should’ve mentioned that you don’t have to trait for Glyphs to get a lot out of the Glyphs of Elementals. They have pretty good uptime even if totally untraited.

My Ele runs in Earth most of the time. Toughness, bleed, and an elemental that’s hard to take down quickly add to survivability in large fights. S/D is awesome, though I depend more on the /D part to hit Churning Earth for the real take downs for groups. I was able to solo a Champion last night in Kessex (forgot which one, but he took about four minutes to down and I had to kite him around like mad. Used Greater Elemental twice…) He’s still leveling, so his build is in flux, but I’m running 10 Air, 10 Earth and 17 Arcane right now. I don’t recall my traits off the top of my bald little Asuran head. Also, Slots are Healing Glyph, Radiation Field, Fire Signet, Earth Signet and Greater Elemental Glyph. I believe I have the Glyph CDR trait.

Anyway, that’s my 2 coppers. Hope you figure out your problems.

Ele is hard, and D/D is not meant to sit still and autoattack. Saying you deal “106 damage per hit” makes me think you’re just sitting in fire and autoattacking. You need to be constantly moving, dodging, and cycling through abilities and attunements. There are some exceptions, but generally you only want to autoattack if your damaging spells in fire and earth are all on cooldown, and you don’t need water heals, auras, or utility.

Your big bursty spells are fire 3, fire 5, earth 2, 4, and 5. Try to keep them all on cooldown (ie, use them constantly). Fire 2 and water 2 are both good damage too if you’re out of cooldowns, just don’t stand still while you channel them, practice circle-strafing to avoid some damage. When everything is on cooldown, then you can use a few autoattacks in lightning attunement.

1) You already have a lot of 80s, you shold know how to level up with dungeon explorations, this is also a very easy way to get good and cheap rare equips…

2) Use ranged weapons to level up. Always summon your elementals (you can summon two at a time: water and fire elemental is a good combo). Staff and S/D or S/F are very good to range and kite mobs to the death.

3) Healing-Evade (30-arcane)

4) Lightning Hammer, but is really boring

Personally I leveled with Conjure Lightning Hammer from 30-80.

20: 0/0/0/10/0
30: 0/0/10/10/0
40: 20/0/0/10/0
50: 20/0/0/20/0
60: 20/0/0/30/0
70: 20/10/0/30/0
80: 20/20/0/30/0

Lightning Hammer can be used full time once you get 40 with Conjurer trait. The damage of Lightning Hammer is absurd. In addition the 3rd attack on the auto is a massive AOE blind every 1.5 seconds. Once mobs fall into the rotation, you mostly won’t ever get hit by anything not immune to blind because most of them will attack once every 2 seconds. You’ll learn to be annoyed by Dredge cause they’re immune to the Blind. The most annoying aspect will be people picking up your second hammer which can lead to some in between time.

You rely mostly on Cantrips for utility and pump them up via traits (Fire IV, Water III, Water IX). Trait setups are largely negotiable outside of 20/0/0/20/0 as a build. I think I geared for Power, Power/Vit then Power/Prec/Tough later.

Honestly made the whole thing face roll easy on both my Eles. Could take on whole waves Warrior style and not even break a sweat because of how much damage prevention the AOE blind was doing.

Then once you hit 80 you can decide if you wanna lean on that Evasive Arcana crutch or not.

http://i.imgur.com/zV1L0XJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HUeneoa.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/u5qrbJu.jpg

Cheers for all the suggestions! I will have a cycle through and see how I get on.

so let me get this straight you’re using a broken cookie cutter bunker build thats meant for pvp and you’re doing pve?
how about 1 using the f1-4 skills and pressing 1 through 5 and scrapping the build you are using right now for a more damage focused one so you can kill the mobs before they kill you.

and try using ether renewel, 15 seconds with some of the best healing and the almost best condition removal in the game is a god send in pve since mobs generally dont stun you.
if that still doesn’t work then i’d say scrap playing an ele because if you cant improve then its a lost cause.

As any kind of ele, you always have to stay mobile. Get used to kiting/switching directions to weave in and out of mobs. The reason why D/D is so survivable in pve is that so many of your skills include displacement of some sort. This makes d/d ele great at juggling groups of mobs, but you feel a bit like a fool against singles. You should be jumping in, damaging, and then using a displacement skill to move to a new group and get away from your hits. Dodges go a huge way.

The toughest part is dealing with groups of ranged mobs, especially those that cc like krait. With d/d use your auras,cc, and rtl well. If that doesn’t work, switch temporarily to S/F as Focus owns against ranged projectiles.

Hmm…. since you are still leveling I think the simplest answer is that you have out-leveled your gear.

Leveling alone without using a conjure lightning hammer build is highly sub-optimal, period.

No mention of gear in the OP. Is the gear your wearing close to your actual level? Weapons, Jewelry too? Did you throw some runes in that gear?

When I leveled up my eles, I really enjoyed it. Here are some of my experiences:

1. Movement is the best defense against melee mobs. One advantage of D/D is that we can run at full speed and spam pbAOE without having to face the enemies. Weaving (keep running into and pass your enemies), circular kiting all work.

2. Environment is the best defense against ranged mobs. Another advantage of eles is that many of your spells can hit through walls/trees. When fighting ranged mobs, I usually find a building and run around it and spamming aoe. This way the ranged mobs are forced to move and they cannot hit me, while I can hit them. I use this method to solo many ranged Champion boss. Whenever I saw they are going to use their powerful ranged attack, I just hide behind a building. Sometimes, even dodging cannot save me from these attacks because they hit multiple times.
3. Attunement swap is really important. An ele who does not attunement swap is like a Mesmer who does not use illusion.
4. Learn to dodge. You can see some attacks coming and dodge them. But sometimes you have to predict when the mob is going to use what attack by count the timing. Most of the mobs are very predictable.
5. Lightning hammer is really effective and easy to use, but I personally don’t like to play such a passive style.
6. When I try to solo a Champ, I do not care if I down/escape in the first few attempts. The goal of the first couple attempts is to figure out what kind of attacks the boss has and the timing of these attacks. Also, to explore the area and find the terrain that can help me. Another thing is to remember that the seemingly most dangerous place can be the safest place. For example, the safest place to fight some champ boss is right in front of them or even right under them. Fighting really close to these boss will force the boss to use only melee attacks which are really easy to dodge.

TBH I would recommend just rolling a mesmer. The survivability is better, damage is better, the only thing that sucks is the relative lack of speed until you can slot 6-piece rune of centaur, then it’s 100% swiftness.

The only time I long for my Ele is in pitched zerg vs zerg confrontations… but only for a minute before I hurl 5 guys off a cliff to their death, stealth through the blob to portal my team into their squishies, melt people from 1200 range reliably, etc etc.

mjharrison.3209:

TBH I would recommend just rolling a mesmer. The survivability is better, damage is better, the only thing that sucks is the relative lack of speed until you can slot 6-piece rune of centaur, then it’s 100% swiftness.

The only time I long for my Ele is in pitched zerg vs zerg confrontations… but only for a minute before I hurl 5 guys off a cliff to their death, stealth through the blob to portal my team into their squishies, melt people from 1200 range reliably, etc etc.

I am interested in start a Mesmer, can you explain how Mesmer has better survivability, and how can you melt people from 1200 range reliably. It seems you use greatsword?

why do you have all your points in water and arcana LOL

don’t be afraid to build damage. Ele is extremely easy to level up provided that you know anything other than rolling your face in the keyboard.

Let me guess your other professions: Warrior guardian ranger mesmer and thief?

Profs are in sig genius. I played ele since beta. Glass ele is paper, whereas beserker mesmer is fine.

GS/S+F 20/20/0/0/30

…who are you talking to?

Razor.6392:

…who are you talking to?

I believe he thought you were replying to him Razor initially and then he replied to your reply that was intended for OP.

This is why quoting is good.

On that note I agree Mesmer is pretty boss. I play on a 20/20/0/30/0 build in Knight/Zerker gear and it’s brutal damage, great survivability and amazing utility. If I hadn’t dedicated so much time to the Ele and all my gear sets…

As we leveled our eles (not the first characters that we brought to lvl 80) there was a time we got really frustrated and we tried a lot.. but in the end we leveled them up through crafting from 60 to 80 (or maybe from 65 to 75.. who knows).. it was a horrible experience.
Leveling our necros had been very easy and relaxed.. it was such a difference.
Mesmer was a little struggle until lvl 20, but then okay and got better with each new level!
So in my opinion of all three “light professions” ele is the most demanding and tedious to level up.

Playing the lvl 80 ele in nice gear is fine!

Navi.7142:

As we leveled our eles (not the first characters that we brought to lvl 80) there was a time we got really frustrated and we tried a lot.. but in the end we leveled them up through crafting from 60 to 80 (or maybe from 65 to 75.. who knows).. it was a horrible experience.
Leveling our necros had been very easy and relaxed.. it was such a difference.
Mesmer was a little struggle until lvl 20, but then okay and got better with each new level!
So in my opinion of all three “light professions” ele is the most demanding and tedious to level up.

Playing the lvl 80 ele in nice gear is fine!

I found the opposite for my Ele. Till I “figured it out” 1-20 was abysmal. After that it was all very easy with S/D and then faceroll, laughably easy with Lightning Hammer.

Yeah, we never tried the lightning hammer thing.. ^^

That might be worth a try for the OP.

I found Necromancer to be a big pain to level (outside of crafting and zerg running in EB). That lack of melee cleave just makes everything so much more difficult.

I stick with D/D and have very few problems levelling. I actually am using the Aurashare build since it’s what I want to run for the most part once I hit 80. I don’t care if it’s not an optimal build. It’s a viable one and fun for me.

I found out that, if you actually don’t have all the 70 trait points, ele leveling with D/D is quite difficult. I’ve had way more fun with my D/F or S/D.

S/D mostly kills ur opponents very fast or F gives nice defensive options.

Also try to get gear closer to your level, that helps a bit.
All the best.

I HATED and I mean -HATED- leveling my ele, it lead to lots of rants in my guild’s chat. The story quests were a kitten and half to complete. Once I got the class leveled, geared, and traited things got a lot better.

Eles are always going to be a little worse than “meh” in open world PvE. They hold their own in dungeons though.

Where eles are really fun is in WvW, if you want a PvE character you’re probably better off rolling a Warr or a Guard.

Consume foods and oil/stones.

This is what I usually do in pve as ele:

Fire 3, fire 4, fire 2, fire 5, earth 4, earth 2, water 3 + 4, water 2 if . Low hp, etc etc. Point is you need to use your spells. Aa with dd ele will make you die.

If you are not using your Auto-Attack as a D/D ele you are dealing no damage.
Edit: actually this is true for all classes and all weapons.

air 4-5 fire- 3-5-4-earth-4-3-3-5-2-water-1-2-3-4-5
result:
full health, mightstacks, lots of damage, bleeds and burns on foes.

armor:
zerker+rampager
Sigil of Battle ftw
traits:
0/30/0/20/20

Zelyhn.8069:

If you are not using your Auto-Attack as a D/D ele you are dealing no damage.
Edit: actually this is true for all classes and all weapons.

EXACTLY!!! Glad you wrote this. In many duels or teamfights I see eles sitting around on cooldowns doing nothing but switching through attunements searching for something off CD.

Air and Fire have huge meleerange and cleave width. both deal 1k+ crits and fire hits for 2-3.3k if very close to the target. All of it on 5 targets.

Haha you know I am always spot on

Lightning whip is our strongest hitting AA (1.22 per second), easy to land (300 range) in aoe (max: 3 targets). The fire AA is a bit more tricky (1.15 c/s) because it requires you to be very close to your target to unleash’ its full potential, which is a bit lower than Lightning Whip. The earth AA is decently strong and allows you to hit targets anywhere on the Z axis and behind you while you run, even behind walls. The water AA is half-ranged and pierces, but it is slow. I must admit that in water and fire I am most likely using the Drake’s breath and the Cone of Cold in PvP.
Anyway, D/D is just insane once you can master it.

It happened to me quite a few times to fail my weapon switches at the beginning of some tournaments. I ended up with just a dagger main-hand, no off-hand. It was so instructive! This is how I learned how to use my first 3 skills on each attunements with increased efficiency. You can win a tournament with just a main-hand weapon.
Our class is hard to master, it requires a lot of practice.
If I can give an advice to this community, it would be to stop reading guides (even mine) and experiment for themselves. Experiment everything! Only after you know what works for you can you compare your performance with others and improve it.

True story, I rework my builds every day, trying to get more out of them.

Also I feel that as an Elementalist I never stop learning new things. Sometimes by watching, sometimes by theorycrafting, other times by accident.

The hardest thing for me is to find the right balance between defensive stats without losing dps. Running 0/20/0/20/30 on d/d this is quite a struggle sometimes.

Here is what I use for WvW atm and I love it. More precision would be nice though. 20 mightstacks solo, perma 25 in group… dont forget to count them in . 25 bloodlust ofc.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQJAoYhEmmbwR5wjDAEFm4iQxDNUeMTO2A-jEzAo+ASQAJRAJ/AlAXGblLIV3wWejmqWISbjphhVxoyAwMGA-w

Neko.9021:

Go full Berserker gear. No wonder you’re having problems.

I agree they got hobbled by Anet, but to say they are **** I don’t know. I think Engineers are **** in my mind but I can accept that that is just because I don’t get on well with playing them.

Elementalist is my number 1 character, and always will be. I totally enjoy playing my ele in PvE and WvW from level 1 to 80, depending on the situation I go I generally use Scepter/Dagger solo or Staff in group for group PvE and it’s generally a breeze. Staff for WvW. I don’t play PvP.

Yes I did notice a point in my Elementalists life where when he reached a certain level and I felt as though the level to ability ratio was out of whack.

Apart from 1-1 confrontations with Champions, the Elementalist can take most mobs and Veterans are not a problem, Maybe not a veteran with a mob but 1-1 no problem. I struggle more with my Guardian (also ranger and engi I’m still trying with) than my Elementalist tbh when it comes to mobs but I put that down to my inexperience with Guardians and not settling on weapon sets that suit my play style which I’m working on.

I learnt in GW that Elementalists are super squishy, and generally I play to avoid getting hit whilst hitting as big and bad as I can and generally it pays off.

All of that said, I’d love to see something given back.

If you are level 66 you should have 20 points in Water, 10 in Air and 20 in Arcana.

Air = Zephyr’s Boon
Water = Cleansing Wave, Cantrip Mastery
Arcana = Elemental Attunement, Renewing Stamina

Utility slots = Lighting Flash, Signet of Air, Mist Form
Elite = Conjure Fiery Greatsword

Armor
Search for all 6 armor pieces with the pre-fix Knight’s. (level 65 masterwork)
Socket all armor pieces with Emerald Crystals. (level 65)

Trinkets
Search for all 5 accessories with the pre-fix Emerald. (level 65 masterwork)

Weapons
Search for 2 daggers with the pre-fix Knight’s. (level 65 masterwork)
Socket a major Sigil of Bloodlust on the offhand dagger.
Socket a major Sigil of Fire on mainhand dagger.

Now you will kick butt.