Guild Wars 2

I have a lvl 13 ele alt and I am struggling with fighting even one, same level mob, I win but with 1/4 of my health left and if there are multiple mobs I die quickly or get downed a couple of times. I think my problem is with in combat mobility. I am used to playing mesmer/theif which has many ways to avoid damage or warrior/guardian where damage doesn’t really matter. As an low level elementalist I only have 2 dodges, no vigour, and only arcane shield to protect myself it seems. I would really like to enjoy playing my ele but I can’t tolerate it so any advice would be appreciated.

Stack the kitten out of the power stat with all power armor/weapons/trinkets with Minor Sigil of Bloodlust on your weapons, and six different +10 power minor runes in your armor.

Start in water trait line, your aiming for 15 water. That’s a nice heal on change into water (EDIT: sorry, this is wrong until you get second tier traits, go for arcane first). Then 10 Arcane (or even the other way around) in arcane you want to pick up trait V, that will give you buffs when you change attunement. A more risky way to go is 10 in fire for Lava Tomb. This will kill any melee enemies when you are down, if you have high enough power and your downed 1 will do more damage. This is costly though and should only be used as a last resort. Staying alive is key.

As an ele, we have nothing like the Mes/Theif and no where near that of the guardian and warrior in terms of sustain until higher levels.

Stacking power will help you kill stuff, but stacking vitality will help with lower levels.

Remember, don’t be afraid to buy gear off the trading post every now and then (I suggest every 10 levels or even every 5 till you get some nice yellows)

Weapons: D/D is good at higher levels. S/D will help out lower levels as Scepter has a nice heal and dagger offhand has a nice heal. Both of those combined will be similar in strength to your main heal. Scepter Fire 2 will miss unless the target is still, good for those ranged foes, or in conjunction with the immobilize from signet of earth.

Use Glyph of Elemental Harmony as your main heal. That gives buffs, protection being a strong buff, or even regen to help when at low levels.

Overall advice: Learn the weapons, there are 20 skills and you will need to use the right ones for the right situation. Also, don’t be a baby have a piece of cheese … I mean, use the attunement swap, don’t just auto attack in fire / air.

Ignore all defensive stats.
Stack as much offense as you can, pick up a staff and build towards a 30/10/0/10/20 build. Or 30/0/0/20/20. Focus on fire traitline primary, on arcana secondary and water and air tertiary.
Trick with this build is to stay in fire for your dmg and only attunement swap if you need the utility to survive if you pulled to many mobs at once, or fight a nasty veteran.
The idea is to simply kite around your lava font so the enemy runs around in it, trying to catch you while you nuke it with your auto attack and let it burn.
Thanks to 10% more dmg against burning foes and the cd reduction on fire spells you can maintain lava font 100% of the time, while putting out awesome aoe dps. Blasting staff and boons on attunement swap in arcane traitline. All berseker gear.
No one needs defense while leveling with this, cause you will kill so fast mobs cant touch you. Also, arcane blast and its projectile finish counterpart are your friends. You have many combo fields. Trigger them with your own finishers.
I used to just facetank mobs when i lvld like this. And staff has been buffed last patch, so you should do well with this. Also, like slasher said, keep your gear up to date. Then at 80 you can change your build to sometging more defensive if you like.

Btw, srry for bad formating… Writing this on a mobile.

Cheers

The way of the bunker:

Just go straight for the Lightning hammer. Then it’s as simple as pressing 1 till everything is dead.
Contrary to what people suggest for “standard play”, if you are planning on going for the hammer build, you will have to get some points in defensive traits(starting off with 10 in earth for the toughness bonus, getting stone splinters along the way) and get defensive gear(around 50% power/50% toughness). The lightning hammer is the most damaging tool in the arsenal of elementalists, so your damage won’t take much of a dent from grabbing defensive gear(on the contrary, if you plan on melee with subpar gear, your damage will drop because you’d spend too much time running).
With hammer and signet of fire, you can reach 50%+ crit chances on low lev chars even without fury. Then just 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 and hammer away.

As for useful skills, whenever you encounter a tough opponent with a hammer build, drop some chill on them before going full manmode. Either grab a staff for the field or go dagger/focus. Both work, D/F got more single target control, while staff got more AoE. As for really tough opponents, it might be wise to grab the frost bow instead.

Thanks for the advice, I will try out y’all’s advice and see what works for me.

Other general new player advice: Make sure your equipment is updated every couple of levels (between 3 and 5 or so) preferable with Green level gear. Make sure you buy some jewelry.

If you are using scepter, make sure you have OH dagger, scepter/focus is very weak offensively and bad at killing things. If you use dagger, either OH focus or OH dagger can work.

Make sure you are cycling attunements and trying not to just auto attack. try and use your blast finishers on your fire fields or water fields (if you have them) for area might and healing. Remember that damage done in attunements is generally Fire>Air>Earth>>>Water, so try and spend most of your time casting your more powerful skills, and avoid things like shatterstone, staff water auto attack, etc and only switch to water when you need the healing or utility.

I’ve just started leveling an elementalist myself, also currently at level 13. Just wanted to say that I find D/D quite good. I co-main Mesmer 60%, Thief 40%, so it could be that I’m used to active evasion, but I think D/D has tons of options for PvE survivability.

Fire attunement has Burning Speed, which I tend to use to plow through a couple mobs, then drop ring of fire (sometimes the AoE hits, as a bonus, but mostly I use it for distance). You’ll be out of melee range, and can get off skill #2 for a few ticks while kiting, then hit with Fire Grab (#5) for big AoE damage.

Air is good for RtL/Updraft (#4->#5), AoE-ing and knocking down everything around you. I tend to use this to open, followed by fire or earth, depending on my mood or what’s on CD. Lightning Whip seems to be the hands-down best auto-attack for eles, also. I like to use the aura right before swapping attunements.

Earth is amazing for kiting and nearly as good as fire for finishing. Swap in after air (w/aura up) and #4->#5 for big AoE lockdown and damage. Arcane shield is great as a utility when you want to get that Churning Earth off (I would still use Earthquake first with more than 2 mobs aggroed). #2 is great for kiting groups, and the auto-attack has just enough range to keep out of melee and drop bleeds. #3 is also great for immobilizing veterans, just don’t follow up with the leap!

Water has great heals. I don’t see much love for the #2 channel, but at level 13 (and before) it provides great survivability (and AoE) on a low CD. Time will tell if it’s any good later on. The AoE chill is yet another great kiting tool.

The lesser elemental glyph is good for distracting mobs, and Arcane Shield is amazing if you’re having trouble staying alive. Both are quickly accessible (i.e. not third tier). Just my 2 cents as an also-new elementalist.

Edit: I just noticed we have identical situations, haha. Attunement swap like a madman! If you’re finding yourself out of options, there’s almost always something useful popping off of CD in another attunement. Also, I’m constantly strafing at ~250 range, just out of melee. Play it like shortbow kiting (Thief) at closer range, with more CC options. Somewhat comparable to Staff or GS for a mesmer, also at closer range. Nothing really replaces blurred frenzy though .