Guild Wars 2

Hello there!
I just started an elementalist character, and it is so vast, that even after reading about, can`t really comprehend all the mechanics that are involved. I played a thief so far, but had my breaks with the game, so I would like a good PvE build, if possible with staff. I would like all out DPS, Crit, Condition Dmg? Is that good for starters? Or is there another way? I`ve heard that with ele there is a lot of dodging involved, I don`t know if I can keep that up at bossfights (i know i was a thief, but haven`t played the game for a while now). Also, a good trait advice would also come in handy what where should I invest… maybe a helpful link, or something!?

Thanks in advance!

I was looking for a guide for this as well, I haven’t found one yet but people say you have to stay at range or you will get smashed, since staffs are a ranged weapon, most out of all the ele weapons. You also need to predict where they are going so you can hit them effectively with aoes. About skills and traits I have no idea though. Hopefully someone else can provide that info, and maybe a proper guide.

Good DPS PvE builds that are truly in the spirit of what an Elementalist does best don’t use staff. The staff DPS PvE build that is boring to play, brings little party utility, but puts out big numbers: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/

If you would like trait advice, see Neko’s and Zel’s guides which are stickied at the top of this forum. Neko focuses on Scepter-hammer but has a bit about staff, Zel focuses on Dagger/Focus. Both provide relatively high DPS builds that also bring a lot of utility to a party.

Condition damage Ele’s are not very strong in PvE, so just aim for full zerk armor + a full set of superior runes of the scholar or superior runes of the ranger. If you have problems surviving, use a mix of knight chest, helm, and pants with zerk everything else.

Oh, so no staff
Anyway thanks for the tip I will check them out again in detail. So few good guides on elementalist, even on youtube…

Since you’re new to the class, I’d reccomend against going full DPS while lvling. Zerk on armor/trinkets/weapons, but I’d go bunkery with your traits (0/0/10/30/30 is mine) at least until you hit 80. We’ve got very low HP and armor and lvling can be a pain. We’ve also got a high learning curve. Dealing with that and being a rally bot is part of why people find ele frustrating.

Staff will do you just fine, btw. I’ve used it since day one and I very often use it while standing on top of the enemy (Arcane Wave ftw.) But I couldn’t do that while leveling. I didn’t have the traits, gear, or skill with the class. Be patient, experiment, and keep at it and you’ll do fine. Also read this forum; there’s plenty of great guides on ele worked throughout the threads here.

Also, dodging is something that I do a lot of with every class. It’s a core game mechanic and mastery of it will do wonders for you in the long run.

What exactly do you want to know about ele’s? They have high damage and the lowest health pool, and CAN get smashed up close. But there are dagger builds out there. The most commonly used weapon on ele is a staff tho i much prefer the fresh air scepter / focus build..

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

Good DPS PvE builds that are truly in the spirit of what an Elementalist does best don’t use staff. The staff DPS PvE build that is boring to play, brings little party utility, but puts out big numbers: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/

If you would like trait advice, see Neko’s and Zel’s guides which are stickied at the top of this forum. Neko focuses on Scepter-hammer but has a bit about staff, Zel focuses on Dagger/Focus. Both provide relatively high DPS builds that also bring a lot of utility to a party.

Condition damage Ele’s are not very strong in PvE, so just aim for full zerk armor + a full set of superior runes of the scholar or superior runes of the ranger. If you have problems surviving, use a mix of knight chest, helm, and pants with zerk everything else.

Why do you think that everyone should play the same way you do?
The game offers a good number of options and anyone is able to choose whatever they want. OP asked for help about staff, if you don’t like, do not come here to say to not use that.

Staff offers way more utility than the D/D build that everyone plays. You guys ask Anet for more viable builds, but keep your mind closed to the builds that already can be used. Staff is a ranged weapon, but you can switch to LH or FGS to do great damage in melee range. You have good heals at low cooldown, and can keep fire field up all the time.

I create my Ele to play with Fire build: VI, VII (VIII for dungeons), XII (XI for dungeons, if there is someone who can keep fire field up).
20 points in Arcana for V, VIII, and the spare 20 points you can put where you find more useful. I like 20 in Water for the Cantrips recharge, but as Cleansing Wave will be a Master trait, i’m not sure what to do after dec 10th.

Is anyone still playing D/D full water full arcane for real?

I tend to run with all weapons in my inventory, used to run the celestial fresh air build but the damage was way too mediocre, for a few weeks now I’ve been running Nike from DnT’s dps build and I love it. Mostly played with conjure weapons which works great in my organized groups. The survivability is a bit low but I’ve always run zero builds and think I’ve just gotten used to the mechanics.

EDIT: forgot to add my point, elements lists can really be played in so many ways but due to their low base stats they are paper, so if you do wanna play full zerk first just get used to the mechanics and learning to dodge. Imo though I would most probably never use a staff in anything other than wvw. But try the bunker build, get used to the class and all the games mechanics and then only opt for damage

What about a weapon-neutral build?

Not sure how many forum certified there are but 20-10-30-X-X with signet auras works rather well with good protection-fury-swiftness uptime and the occasional mightstack off fire aura.

Been using it on and off and it has been rather survivable.

FLiP.7680:

Why do you think that everyone should play the same way you do?

I don’t see how linking to other people’s builds, which are focused on clearing PvE content in a fast and efficient way and thus are better (using mob killtime as a metric) than other builds, means I think everyone should play the same way I do.

OP asked for good staff builds. I linked the staff build that I would run if I had to use a staff for an extended period of time. OP also said that he or she is new to ele, so I gave a cautionary bit of advice that the optimal rotation for said staff build requires pressing 4 buttons – 1, 2, 5, and whichever slot Arcane Wave is on.

Staff in WvW, for example, is much more engaging because of the control and support that it brings – properties that are suboptimal in current PvE. It as a weapon is not boring, but its best use in PvE is.

Staff builds for pve are great, and there getting buffed in the next patch. Don’t listen to people why say they have no utility because it’s not true at all. I agree however that when leveling D/D is a great way to go, it’s a higher skill cap but if you stay mobile you can take on anything in this game.

At lvl 80 I prefer staff or s/d for most content

Weapon neutral?

Try my 30/30/0/0/10 build: it works with daggers, staff, scepter, LH, FGS anything! But it requires a high skill level to work properly. The Dec 10 patch will even further buff my build and make it even more compatible with staff and conjures

Zelyhn.8069:

Weapon neutral?

Try my 30/30/0/0/10 build: it works with daggers, staff, scepter, LH, FGS anything! But it requires a high skill level to work properly. The Dec 10 patch will even further buff my build and make it even more compatible with staff and conjures

Have ran that as well but it could be a bit overwhelming for starters.

Good thing about it is the glyph fit-in in case you got a pug with problems at shaman.

Air is an excellent line overall.

I agree. In my opinion it is staple for PvE.

Zelyhn.8069:

Is anyone still playing D/D full water full arcane for real?

You must be a PVEer… High water/arcane is the standard PVP build. Fresh Air is pretty much only found in sPVP.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

Good DPS PvE builds that are truly in the spirit of what an Elementalist does best don’t use staff. The staff DPS PvE build that is boring to play, brings little party utility, but puts out big numbers: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/

If you would like trait advice, see Neko’s and Zel’s guides which are stickied at the top of this forum. Neko focuses on Scepter-hammer but has a bit about staff, Zel focuses on Dagger/Focus. Both provide relatively high DPS builds that also bring a lot of utility to a party.

Condition damage Ele’s are not very strong in PvE, so just aim for full zerk armor + a full set of superior runes of the scholar or superior runes of the ranger. If you have problems surviving, use a mix of knight chest, helm, and pants with zerk everything else.

what the frack?

little utility to party? more than d/d and s/f or s/d. All the fields up keeps, I’d say staff bring more to the party than other weaps. but that’s just my opinion.

play how you want, figure out what play style is good for you. Guides are to help people who don’t know what they are doing, but it doesn’t necessarily always work for you.

pho.9412:

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

Good DPS PvE builds that are truly in the spirit of what an Elementalist does best don’t use staff. The staff DPS PvE build that is boring to play, brings little party utility, but puts out big numbers: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/

If you would like trait advice, see Neko’s and Zel’s guides which are stickied at the top of this forum. Neko focuses on Scepter-hammer but has a bit about staff, Zel focuses on Dagger/Focus. Both provide relatively high DPS builds that also bring a lot of utility to a party.

Condition damage Ele’s are not very strong in PvE, so just aim for full zerk armor + a full set of superior runes of the scholar or superior runes of the ranger. If you have problems surviving, use a mix of knight chest, helm, and pants with zerk everything else.

what the frack?

little utility to party? more than d/d and s/f or s/d. All the fields up keeps, I’d say staff bring more to the party than other weaps. but that’s just my opinion.

I agree, staff has the potential to bring a lot of utility to a situation. But as I already said…

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

OP asked for good staff builds. I linked the staff build that I would run if I had to use a staff for an extended period of time. OP also said that he or she is new to ele, so I gave a cautionary bit of advice that the optimal rotation for said staff build requires pressing 4 buttons – 1, 2, 5, and whichever slot Arcane Wave is on.

Staff in WvW, for example, is much more engaging because of the control and support that it brings – properties that are suboptimal in current PvE. It as a weapon is not boring, but its best use in PvE is.

Please don’t confuse my criticism of a build for criticism a weapon.

And I would agree that 30/30/0/0/0 is a build base that is about as weapon-universal as you’d get. It is best tailored to MH Dagger’s strengths, but it can be used pretty well with any other weapon.

scerevisiae.1972:

Zelyhn.8069:

Is anyone still playing D/D full water full arcane for real?

You must be a PVEer… High water/arcane is the standard PVP build. Fresh Air is pretty much only found in sPVP.

Keep in mind the title of this thread.

I’d suggest trying to level with double daggers. The skills lend themselves to open pve roaming on offhand dagger, and mainhand dagger has pretty decent damage.

The main source of damage on a MH Dagger Ele is Lightning Whip (Air 1). It has a good damage coeffiient and nice range, and it’s easy to use.

From there, what traits you take have a huge impact on your character. Fresh Air, an Air Grandmaster Trait, is very cool because it lets you go back to Air Attunement and spam Lightning Whip over and over again. Essentially, for PvE, the idea behind a mainhand Dagger Fresh Air Ele is to blow your high damage cooldowns in other attunements (or swap to them for utility), then go right back to Air and keep autoattacking.

Good traits, post December 10 patch:
Arcana:
-Renewing Stamina, an Adept trait, gives double dodges. Great cheap defensive trait. Highly recommend.
-Elemental Attunement, moved to Master trait, gives boons on attunement swapping. It’s a large loss in damage but it’s a cool trait to basically have Protection on demand. Nice for casuals, but PROS don’t bother taking it! (I take it)
-Evasive Arcana, a GM trait, is just awesome, but the loss in damage from going this far into Arcana is massive. Best left to PvP and WvW builds, really. Still, the heal/cleanse in water, the blind in air, and blast finisher in Earth are all cool. It’s just a big DPS loss is all.

Water:
-Vital Striking, an Adept trait, is great. Scholar Runes on a trait, and encourages skillful play. Very good for increasing DPS.
-Cleansing Wave, moving to Master trait, is amazing at clearing condis. One neat thing is that the 15-point trait in Water is a sizable AoE heal, so picking up this lets you get that as well. Again, a huge DPS loss, and better for PvP builds, but if you want AoE cleansing on demand, this is pretty darn good.

Earth:
-Stone Splinters, an Adept trait, is amazing damage increase for daggers. It’s basically 10% more damage.
-Serrated Stone, an Adept trait, is also a good damage increasing trait, and nice for players who are going high into Earth Magic.
-Rock Solid is a nice support trait with on-demand Stability, and if you go with a heavy Earth build, swapping it in on certain encounters is great.
-The 25-point is a huge damage multiplier, and one that a lot of players overlook. Going 25 in Earth and picking up 2 of the 3 traits above leads to a build with a nice bit of Toughness while also doing a surprisingly large amount of damage.

Air:
-Bolt to the Heart, an Adept Trait, is insane, take it.
-Air Training, a Master Trait, is good for Fresh Air builds.
-Fresh Air is great and makes MH Dagger DPS builds viable.

Fire:
-You basically go in this trait like for Persisting Flames, a Grantmaster Trait. Go 30 in fire or not at all, honestly.
-Conjurer makes Lightning Hammer a viable weapon set (pair it with camping Water Attunement and Piercing Shards, a Water Adept trait, for massive damage). Take this if you’re into that.
-Internal Fire and Pyromancer’s Alicarity are general traits you pick up if going heavy in Fire.

Some nice trait arrays for MH Dagger Ele are:
-30/30/0/0/10 or 30/30/10/0/0 = Fury Provider, high damage
-0/30/25/10/5 or 0/30/25/15/0 or 0/30/30/0/10 = High damage and some toughness too, but no Fury
-0/30/0/20/20 or 0/30/0/10/30 = Bad damage but better survivability tools

I find 0/30/0/10/30 to be the best overall. The damage good, the other builds a LOT deadlier but not having the 30 in arcane is just annoying

I takes some practice and planning to get rid of extra points in arcane but doing this opens many new desirable horizons.

Zelyhn.8069:

I takes some practice and planning to get rid of extra points in arcane but doing this opens many new desirable horizons.

im taking your word for it and dropping arcane

Azure.8670:

Zelyhn.8069:

I takes some practice and planning to get rid of extra points in arcane but doing this opens many new desirable horizons.

im taking your word for it and dropping arcane

Make sure you have fresh air though!

I personally run this:

http://bit.ly/1ggsvna

It’s by no means optimal, but it’s never failed me in Fractals/Arah. Not quite full zerk because I’m not perfect, and I like having the little bit of extra vitality. The crit chance is quite low, but the power is high as hell and you get such high uptime on fury from persisting flames that it isn’t really a problem.

I tend to lean more towards support, cycling through my attunements, making sure to blast Lava Font whenever I can to maintain might/fury stacks. Still hit some pretty respectable numbers, and occasionally swap staff for Sc/D if I don’t need the range or physically can’t stay at 600+ range.

Sc/D allows for even more effective might/fury stacking. Permanent 9 stacks is easy, if group is stacked, can maintain closer to 15-20 on your own for an entire fight. I also swap out Quick Glyphs for Bolt to the Heart, and swap my heal and elite to Signet of Renewal/Fiery GS respectively if I swap to Sc/D for the extra damage, or if we need to stack and my elemental’s gonna cause problems.

There are a lot of great guides out there that cover a wide variety of builds that work, the main point is to find one that fits you and adjust it to work exactly the way you want, or use it as is, as a nice, solid build.

AdamGw.5831:

What exactly do you want to know about ele’s? They have high damage and the lowest health pool, and CAN get smashed up close. But there are dagger builds out there. The most commonly used weapon on ele is a staff tho i much prefer the fresh air scepter / focus build..

Well for starters I want to know how can you get the best out of ele in PvE, since that is my main thing now. Like different play styles with diff. wep. (but mostly staff). However I`ve tried the others and I like them! There sure must be lots of ways to play PvE with a class like this. However recently I`ve read a lot of trash talk about ele, mainly that they are not good at PvE… Which make me doubt swithching to it from thief (PvP).

Leveling is boring and I can`t make it any more quicker or fun (that instant lvl 20 birthday gift definietly makes a good help). I think I`ll have to find a quick way to get to 80, and then try out the different builds you guys posted.

Also is it better to be more supportive in a party (buff, heal)? Or more dmg dealer (dps)? What goes the best nowdays with ele?

Thanks very much, you`ve started me on my journey!

When I started out elementalist when the game was released I actually gave it up for a while because I felt too squishy. months later I much more familar with dodge timing, kiting , combo and other critical importance and returned a much much stronger elementalist. My advise, learning and master the basics is critical to our survival. Dead players do no damage.

I myself have been having difficulty leveling my elementalist…
Ive tried d/d, staff, d/f.. I like staff but find the damage output to be a bit subpar. So I have to run with LH and use that when I can. D/D is good but only to blast fields and spamming through attunments…screw up and youre dead.

Maybe Im just doing it wrong, I dont know.

cesmode.4257:

I myself have been having difficulty leveling my elementalist…
Ive tried d/d, staff, d/f.. I like staff but find the damage output to be a bit subpar. So I have to run with LH and use that when I can. D/D is good but only to blast fields and spamming through attunments…screw up and youre dead.

Maybe Im just doing it wrong, I dont know.

Its not always about blasting through attunement…most times. There are quite a few battles where I will some times blast through my D/D combos to get buffs up and going and then stay with 1 attunement for a good 30 seconds because of an effect it has to helps out groups.
Fire= For burning condition/ regular burst damage/ wide spread aoe field.
Water= for the regular healing/Invul/ extra range/ condition removal.
Air= Stuns/weakness.
Earth= Cripples/ Bleeds/ Burst.

And this is just with D/D. Staff, Scepter, Focus, they all have ability that can be amazing for different fights. Switching attunement is good when your waiting on cooldowns but it is no way a requirement to be an amazing elementalist. If anything some times powering through none stop can actually be a bad thing.

My advise, Take your time. Learn each element and its skills and slow but surely you’ll develope a natural body reaction and you’ll barely be aware your even switching attunements and it will just feel like 1 smooth flowing stream of actions and responses.